If Vision is the Only Validation
by Haurvatat
Summary: The government is corrupt and the world is going to seed. Who is there left to trust but the criminally insane? AU Somewhat Ace - centric; includes the Whitebeard Pirates and the Strawhat Pirates; rated for lang; NO PAIRINGS SLASH, HET OR OTHERWISE
1. Woke Up

**Chapter One**

Ace bit his tongue to keep from growling at the door in frustration, pushing on it as hard as he physically could. His first goddamn day on the job was supposed to get horrible only _after_ he had started working, right? His stupid key card wasn't working. Why wasn't it working? The nice nurse lady (what was her name? Hannah or something?) had told him the stupid thing had been activated, so by that logic, the damn thing was supposed to work, yes? And yet.

The employee locker room was probably overrated anyway. He could just carry his shit around with him the whole day. Right. Like _that_ wouldn't get him any weird looks at all(!)

"You locked out?" asked a voice behind him.

"_No_ – I'm just standing out here for the fun of it(!)" Ace said without really thinking about it. Oh, bollocks. First day on the job – first five minutes of the job, actually – and he'd probably already offended someone. The laughter gave some relief, but only a little.

The man was really freaking tall. That, or Ace was just short. Truth be told, it was probably the latter, but you'd never hear him tell it. The man had lazy, half-closed eyes and a wild patch of blond hair on his head, which seemed otherwise devoid of hair. Had it all migrated there or something, or was he just going bald the opposite of the normal way?

"My name's Marco. I can't say I've seen you around here before," he said.

Ace took the proffered hand and shook it. "Yeah; I'm new. I'm Ace. Thank you for not taking offense and getting me fired on the spot. Sometimes my mouth moves when my brain doesn't."

"At least your brain makes the effort to catch up later, which is more than I can say for most of the people who walk through the front doors of this place."

Ace cleared his throat. "So… I don't suppose _your_ key card works, does it?"

"Eh. One way to find out." Marco leaned forward as Ace got out of the way, swiping his card. With a small beep, Marco yanked down the handle and pulled the door open. "Well, whaddya know? Got a locker assigned yet?"

Ace blinked in slight shock. It was a _pull_ door. …Well, at least it meant his card was probably working just fine. "Er, no. I thought I was just supposed to pick a random open one or something."

"That works, I guess. Sometimes the bastards in HR like to screw with new kids by assigning lockers," Marco said.

"How does that count as screwing with them?"

"Because they give 'em Le Locker de la Misère."

"The what?"

"The Locker of Misery. Locker number 28. Somebody in number 29 got fired and as a last 'fuck you' to management, he left his lunch in there. It's been a year and change, I think. It smells like death. One of the janitors passed out when he got too close. We've tried getting the damn lock off, but the guy used to be in a kind of Special Forces Unit in the army, and his lock is heavy-duty like no-one's business. The thing could probably survive a nuclear holocaust. You can understand, then, why no-one wants the locker right next to it."

Ace winced. "I've heard of hazing, but surely that's overkill."

Marco shrugged. "We never said we forced them to keep the locker. Usually they break and switch to a different one after the first day or two. They didn't assign you a locker, though, so you must not impress them as the type of guy they can pull a fast one on, huh?"

"Guess not," Ace mused. He jumped around as he tried to wiggle into his uniform pants, feeling not a little silly. "Hey, er, can I ask a question?"

"You just did, but I'll assume you meant a _further_ question. Go for it."

Ace did his best not to sound at all spooked. He thought he did a pretty good job. "…How freaky does it get around here?"

Marco looked up and studied the younger man. "You've been listening to Hollywood too much, man. This might be a mental hospital, but you'll find no 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' shit here. Most of the folks here are old people who wouldn't hurt a fly. A lot of 'em can't even remember their own names, or they can't remember what happened the day before. The _criminally_ insane guys we keep locked up on the lower floors, for the most part, and even they're pretty well behaved a lot of the time. This job is boring and uneventful. Just have some respect for the patients here, okay? They aren't inmates; they're human beings with severe problems. Your job is never to be the iron fist controlling them. You're here to help them, or at least keep them from hurting themselves. All right?"

"Okay," Ace nodded, swallowing. "Got it."

"Good." They were both completely dressed and Ace had ended up choosing a locker a few away from Marco's. "Now, in terms of who you'll be working with: obviously, there's me. I'm in charge of security, or I'm as close to the guy in charge of security as anyone ever will be. Technically, that's somebody else, a guy name Norton, but he sits on his fat ass all day a never does a thing, so we don't really count him when we're talking about security detail. Then there's the Golightly twins; Norm and Norma. Don't piss off Norma if you value your testicles." Ace must have had an appalled look on his face, because Marco let loose a small grin, which seemed the Marco equivalent of laughing out loud. "Norm's a decent sort. Kind of a douche, but harmless. Also a dumbass. If you need to ask something, either talk to me or Norma. Yes, she's scary when she's angry, but as long as you don't piss her off, she really knows what she's doing and is good with explaining things. Then there's the last guy. Joseph Santorum. You'll notice his last name sounds like 'sanatorium'. Don't make the jokes; they've already been made. Just call him Joe. He is one of the heavy-duty guys. So'm I. We're the ones who are fully authorised to kick the living shit out of somebody who goes out of line, not that we really ever have to. Just remember that he can probably break your neck with his bare hands. He used to be a Navy Seal, so that oughta give you a good idea of who you're working with here."

"Damn," Ace muttered.

"Exactly."

"So it's just the six of us? Well, five, if you don't count Norton?"

"Yeah. I'm telling you; nothing ever happens here. We don't really need _heavy_-heavy security. You'll be fine. I guarantee this is going to be the most boring job you've had since working the food court during college."

"I didn't work at a food court during college," Ace said before he could stop himself.

"Lucky. Where did you end up working?"

"I was a research assistant in the biology department."

Marco stopped and stared hard at Ace. "What's your degree in?"

"I've got a BA in Biochemistry. Minored in Physics and Fine Art. Why?"

Marco chuckled, shaking his head. "Biochem, Physics, and Art, huh? And you're working as a security guard? Yeah, you're weird enough to be in here. Welcome aboard."

"Er… thanks?" Ace said.

"For your first day, I suggest just wandering around and pretending like you're doing something important. Talk to some of the patients. Just try to get a feel for the routine. Lunch break is at one pm. See ya!"

And with that, Marco was gone. Patients and nurses had begun to swarm as breakfast was being served, and Ace soon lost sight of his mentor. Could he be counted as a mentor? Just a friendly coworker? Potential friend? Well, he was helpful, straightforward, and nice, and perhaps that was all there was to it at the moment.

* * *

><p>Ace was bored as sin. Well, Marco <em>had<em> warned him. The top floor (which was actually the ground floor – apparently, the establishment hadn't wanted anyone jumping from the roof, so instead of building up, they had built down instead) was just full of doddering old people who, as Marco had said, could barely remember their own names. They might have been dementia patients, but Ace hadn't really studied enough psychology to know for certain. There were about three or four people who weren't old, but he didn't really know what they were there for. One of them had multiple personality disorder, from what Ace could tell, but her personalities all seemed varying degrees of pleasant. He had only met four of them so far, but he had been informed that there were a good seven or so more. Keeping all the names straight was going to be hell.

He didn't know why his legs eventually carried him down to the lower levels. Hadn't Marco said that the lower levels held the _criminally_ insane guys? The _legit_ crazies? _In retrospect_, Ace thought, _if I want to get used to everything this place can possibly throw at me, I may as well get a good feel for the entirety of what it could entail. That means dealing with the majorly-crazy guys, too_.

The first basement just looked like a general living space. There were baths, playrooms, living rooms, and other such areas. Activities seemed to be going on behind a few of the closed doors, like an Art Therapy class or more private therapy sessions.

Then there was the second basement.

Ace was severely regretting staying up last night to play Amnesia: the Dark Descent. As if the game weren't scary enough, this was almost worse. His breathing was uneven as he peered down the sparse hallway. It was well-lit, at least. The light was almost harsh, all things considered. That only served to make him remember every single horror film he'd ever seen. He didn't like to admit it, but he was kind of a wuss when it came to horror films. For some reason, he watched every single one that came out, anyway.

"Hi, Ace!"

Ace almost had a goddamn heart attack.

He spun around with a soft cry he would never admit to, backing up into the wall faster than his eyes could comprehend what he saw. To his credit, though, he got his breathing under control very quickly when he caught on.

Two wide black eyes were looking at him from a slit in a door. It seemed each door had a small window that could be opened and closed at the will of whoever was living in the room. This window opened wider to show a young man's face, crinkled in laughter.

"You shoulda seen your face!" he giggled.

"Ho-how did you know my name?" Ace asked.

"It's written on your arm."

…Oh. His tattoo. _Riiiiiight_. That was the second stupid-as-hell thing Ace had done today. _That_ was depressing.

Ace laughed nervously. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone I did that."

"Did what? Screamed like a little girl?"

"I didn't scream like a girl!"

"Then what _did_ you scream like?"

"Mind your own business! Jeez," Ace muttered. He inspected the face, still laughing at him from behind the door. For one thing, he was surprised at just how alert he was. Most of the other patients had slightly slow responses, and were frankly somewhat withdrawn. Such was far from the case with this one. He acted as though he and Ace had been friends for years. What really caught Ace's attention was his youth. The kid couldn't have been more than eighteen. Why the hell was he in this place? Didn't they usually try out therapy first and see if the problem persisted into adulthood? It didn't really make any sense.

"So who are you?" Ace asked.

"Monkey D Luffy. But everybody calls me Luffy," he said.

"What's the D stand for?"

"Dunno. Er, I mean, I don't know what it stands for, not that my middle name is 'Dunno'."

"I know what you meant. That's weird, though. My middle name's D too."

Luffy's face had to be hurting from how wide his grin got. "No way! Maybe we're secretly related!"

"Doubt it," Ace said. "Middle names aren't exactly genetic." Okay, so he was lying a little bit. In his family, the middle name – or was it a middle initial? – got passed down just as much as the surname did, and occasionally even more so, since women retained their initial after marriage. "My name's Portgas D Ace. Just Ace is fine, not that you seem to have a problem there," he said.

"Wanna be friends?" Luffy asked.

"Er… Okay?"

"Awesome! Nobody talks to me any more and I get so bored in here, I start trying to teach myself gymnastics. That bored."

"Wow. Serious business, that," Ace said.

"I know, right? None of the guards take me seriously and none of the nurses are allowed in to see me! I'm all, 'what the hell?' over here!" he exclaimed.

"All right, all right. I'll come talk to you when you need to get un-bored, okay?"

"Shake on it!" He extended a hand through the bars on the window. Damn, he had skinny wrists. What did they feed him here? Whatever it was, it clearly wasn't enough.

"Shake on it." Ace clasped the extended hand and couldn't help but grin. The kid was a fucking weirdo, but his good cheer was infectious.

"See ya 'round!" And with that, the little window closed.

Ace went back up the stairs, even though he hadn't seen the entirety of the lower levels. He could get around to that tomorrow, after all. Luffy had given him enough to deal with for one day as it was.

* * *

><p>(AN): I'm looking to have a continuous plot for this one. I've actually got shit planned; look at me! Anyway, while I may not be looking to incorporate humour as a major element in this story… you guys know me. If I think of a joke and there's a character who'd be the type to say it, I'm going to end up including it. It's just the way I roll. The next chapter will have something of a plot to work off of, so it shouldn't be quite as boring as this one was.

For all the Marco fans out there… I'm not completely sure how I'm going to make him a more prominent character in this. I'm working on it, but with what I've got right now, he's only going to become important later on in the story, so you may have to wait. Sorry about that! Like I said, I'm still working on it.


	2. Wished That I Was Dead

Guess who just realised that she never put in a disclaimer for this story? Can I fix that now? I don't own anything of One Piece – that honour goes to Eiichiro Oda.

**Chapter Two**

"Back again today? Good for you," Marco said as Ace walked into the employee locker room.

Ace grinned. "And I figured out how to work the door and everything. Aren't you proud?"

"So how _did_ your first day go? I didn't get a chance to ask you before I took off yesterday. I imagine it wasn't too bad, considering you haven't run away screaming yet."

"I love how you add the 'yet'," Ace muttered. "Anyway, it went fine. Even worked up the stones to head down to the second basement."

"Really?" Marco looked genuinely surprised, and a little impressed. "Most guys don't venture down there until their second _week_. I take it nobody down there weirded you out too much?"

Ace heaved air from his lungs. "Er… Well, I was pretty weirded out by this one guy, but nothing I can't handle, I guess?"

Marco grinned. "Which one?"

"Eh, some dude named… I think it started with an L. Monkey D Something-with-an-L."

"Oh! Luffy!" Marco visibly brightened. "He's a sweet kid. Nutty fucker, but one of the friendliest guys you will ever meet. You could punch him clear in the face and as long as you said you were sorry, he'd be all too willing to forgive you and be your best friend."

"So then why is he down in the basements in what looks like solitary confinement?" Ace asked.

"He's too good a friend, it seems, and a bit too daft to really _get_ this place," Marco said. "He made friends with one of the _real_ nutjobs, and later when we had to subdue the guy, Luffy thought we were hurting him and basically took out two security guards without even trying. Well-intentioned, and really freaking strong, but an infraction is an infraction, and we can't have somebody that dangerous running around doing whatever he feels like doing."

"Wow. So what happens if two of his friends get in a fight?"

Marco paused. "Good question. I have no idea. It's never happened in my knowledge. At any rate, if he offered to be your friend, you better accept him."

"I did. I didn't realise just what it entailed at the time, though," Ace said.

"Didn't read the Terms & Conditions, huh? Well, no-one ever does, so who can blame you?" Marco did up the last button on his uniform. "Gonna try for the lower basements today?"

"Maybe. Any guys like Luffy down thereabouts?"

"Nope. I told you; the lower basements are for the whackjobs. Luffy may be crazy, but he's a decent sort of crazy, so he ended up on the second basement. The third and fourth basements are for the scary bastards. Still, don't let me intimidate you," Marco chuckled. "Feel free to experience it all for yourself."

"You're doing this just to screw with me, aren't you?"

"Oh, had you any doubt?" And with that, Marco was gone. Ace sighed. Well, the man had to get his kicks somewhere.

* * *

><p>"You can do this," whispered Ace to himself. And yes, he was perfectly aware that talking to himself in a mental institution was loaded with more irony than he really cared to contemplate at the moment, thank you very much. "There's nothing to worry about. It's just a floor full of… troubled people." He took the stairs one at a time, feeling the blood draining from his face and the shiver down his spine and fully ashamed of both reactions. Some part of him thought that this was perfectly terrifying, and the other, more politically correct part of him thought that it insulting and offensive and positively medieval to be frightened of the insane. That didn't keep him from gripping his hands together tightly.<p>

It might have been silly, but Ace had picked up the habit when he was little. Before his mother had died, she had always held his hand whenever something he wasn't going to like came around. She would rub her thumb over the back of his hand, and even if he couldn't quite remember her face perfectly, he would always remember the warmth of her hand over his and the long, soft fingers that he had somehow, luckily, inherited. After she had died – and yes, it was kind of pathetic, but he did it anyway – he had started holding his own hand whenever things he didn't like started to happen. To anyone looking on, it didn't look as ridiculous as Ace knew it was, for which he was rather grateful. Still, embarrassed as he was of the habit, he never bothered to break himself of it. There was probably some psychological bullshit involved, but Ace ignored all of it and just let things play out the way they were meant to play out. Was that bad?

He was all the way down into the fourth basement. He was strongly reminded of descending deeper and deeper into the layers of Hell. Ahh, Dante's _Inferno_. And to think he had told Mrs. Kenneday that he would never use what he learned in English class in real life.

These doors didn't have little windows like the doors on the second and third basements did. He could only assume that it was because the people behind the doors were too disturbing – wait, he meant _disturbed_ – to be given that kind of freedom.

And, like a switch had been flipped, all of a sudden every single resident of the fourth basement started making noise.

Some of them were screaming like they were being torn apart, some were singing eerie nursery rhymes, and some were babbling random nonsense, but all were clearly making noise at the top of their lungs.

Ace felt no shame in turning tail and booking it the hell out of there.

He made it all the way back to the second basement before he slowed down to catch his breath. His head snapped up when he heard the amused cackling.

"What the hell are _you_ laughing at?" he asked.

The little window slid open and Luffy grinned at him from the other side. "I heard 'em. Went down to the fourth basement, huh?"

"Yeah. What even _was_ that?"

"Oh, they got told there was a new guy on the security team. They do that every time a new person goes down there," Luffy said brightly.

Ace looked horrified. "That's fucking sick!"

"No; it's funny."

"Who even told them I was new?"

"Marco."

"…I'm gonna kill him."

"Good luck."

Ace sighed, straightened, and ran fingers through his hair. "I should have known. Nobody's that nice to the new guy."

"Marco's nice! It was just a joke, anyway," Luffy said. "He was nice to me when I first got here. Not too many others were. Not that it matters. Everybody's my friend these days!" He giggled, clearly pleased.

"How long ago _were_ you admitted?" Ace asked.

Luffy screwed up his face in thought. "Might've been… couple months ago? Not sure. I don't really bother keeping up with dates." Ace was a little relieved. At least Luffy hadn't been admitted as a minor.

"Can I ask you something else without you getting offended?"

"Sure! I never get offended," Luffy said.

"Well… How did you end up here? I mean, what did you do to get landed here?" Ace normally never would be the type to ask to sensitive a question, but somehow he knew Luffy wouldn't mind.

Luffy frowned and Ace wondered if he'd been wrong. "I don't really get it myself. They said it's because I broke some friends out of jail."

Ace stared. "You broke people… out of prison?" Luffy nodded. "…Call me craz- er, rather, never mind, but isn't that just a regular crime? Wouldn't you normally go to jail for that and not here?"

Luffy shrugged. "Well, they weren't my friends yet."

"Wait, you broke them out of prison before you knew them?" Ace knew his jaw was probably somewhere near the floor and didn't care. That was right where it belonged.

"Yeah! But I knew we were going to be friends. They just didn't know it yet. Is that weird?"

"…No." That explained what he was doing in a sanatorium, all right.

"Hey, Ace," Luffy whispered conspiratorially. "Do you think you could smuggle me some meat from the cafeteria? They never give me enough and I'm hungry enough to eat… something gigantic. An elephant. I've never eaten an elephant, but you never know; they might be good."

"Didn't we just have lunch?" Ace asked.

"Yeah. Still hungry."

Ace sighed. "Fine. I'll see what I can do."

"Yay! Dude, you're awesome! I freaking love you!"

"Yeah, yeah. Just don't shout it. I don't want to get in trouble, just in case."

"Okay." Luffy held a finger to his lips. "A secret, huh?"

"…Sure."

"Got it! My lips are zipped!" And with that, he mimed the action and threw away the 'key'. God, he acted like he was seven years old. Somehow, though, it worked for him. Maybe he was just more on the 'eccentric' side of the Crazy Scale.

Ace made his way up the stairs. Why didn't they have a damn elevator in this place? If he ever needed to get from the fourth basement to the ground floor, those were four flights of stairs he was going to have to trek up and it was going to suck. He looked down and saw Luffy waving at him frantically from his little window. He felt his face morph into a grin. Infectious. Honestly.

"Hey, Ace!" Marco called. "Anything interesting happen while you were down there?" God, his poker face was amazing beyond comprehension.

Ace smiled lightly, completely confident. "Nothing at all. The fourth basement was quite uneventful, actually. Just picking up a little something from the cafeteria. I think I'm starting to really like it around here."

Marco's eyes followed him, betraying slight disbelief… Hell, he looked downright impressed. His lips pursed and his eyebrows rose in approval as he went back about his business. Ace mentally punched the air. Flawless victory.

* * *

><p>"Well, I've found the layout," the woman said, gently unrolling the documents out over the desk. "It would seem that there are five storeys in total; the one you see from the outside is the ground floor, and there are four basements besides. There is, alas, no elevator. I hope that presents no complications."<p>

"Might," said the man standing just behind her. "Which floor is Luffy on?"

"From my information, he is in solitary confinement in the second basement. Room 2016A. I have yet to acquire the security information. Supposedly, there have been recent changes in the staff and I'd like to have all the information I can before we make a move."

"Screw that shit. I know what floor he's on. That's good enough for me," the man growled.

"Pretend to have patience, please. For Luffy's sake. If we want to avoid any unnecessary encounters with security-"

"I can take care of security."

She sighed. "That's exactly what I am worried about. Just please, wait until I have the information. It has already been two and a half months. I'm certain Luffy can wait a little longer. They're certainly not treating him badly here."

The man was silent for a little while. "You have a week."

"But that's not enough time! At least give me a-"

"One week. One week and then I act on my own."

He grabbed the three swords that had been rested against the side of the desk and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

* * *

><p>(AN): Guess who is home for spring breeeee-aaaaaak? Remember what happened during the last break? Daily updates? Yeah. I'm not saying that daily updates are guaranteed you, but let's just say your odds are significantly higher than they were. Except for Monday and Tuesday, because I'm going to be in North Carolina to visit my Mémère and I don't think her house has wi-fi. Oh, well. Such is life. Love you guys like mad, as always! See you tomorrow. ;)


	3. With an Aching in My Head

**Chapter 3**

-_One Week Later_-

Nami saw the look on Robin's face as she came through the door and started smirking.

"What did I tell you? That selfish bastard went out on his own, didn't he? Half-cocked and cockier than he had any reason to be?" she asked.

Robin sighed. "At least I gave him what information I had managed to accrue. He indeed does not seem the kind of man to listen to reason."

"Ask me how I saw this coming. I dare you. Hell, I _triple_ _dog_ dare you."

"You were correct. And now, if he is caught, Luffy may be placed in a more troubling situation than he is already in," Robin said, "and if that happens, it's going to be another nightmare attempting to locate and free him."

"I feel your pain, sister. Of course, Lu' wouldn't mind it in the slightest. I mean, he's probably enjoying himself right now."

"In an insane asylum?"

Nami laughed. "Exactly! He probably feels right at home. I bet he's friends with three-quarters of the whole damn establishment by now. You sure you couldn't break him out just by asking the guards nicely? They might even let you do it."

"Somehow I doubt that…" Robin said.

"Who's known Luffy longer: you or me? I've known his retarded ass since kindergarten, and you've known him since he broke you and the sword freak out of prison two months ago. Trust me – the guy is predictable as a summer rain to me," Nami said. "Now where are the others? I asked them to meet us here."

"Others?" Robin looked distressed. It was only so big a restaurant and she didn't want to attract attention. If people looked too hard, they might recognise her as an escaped criminal, even though she had taken precaution to disguise herself. Even if she wasn't recognised, if someone heard their topic of conversation, things could get… _interesting_ to explain. Or, rather, to cover up with random lies.

"Yeah. Some friends of Luffy's and mine. Oh, don't look so freaked. All of them are real tight with us. Fair warning: they're all almost as weird as Luffy. It's probably why he likes them. You 'n' the wannabe samurai are gonna fit right in, especially since he came across you guys almost the exact same way."

"He broke them out of prison, too?" Robin whispered, turning very pale.

Nami snorted. "No. Most of 'em have yet to commit a crime. Actually, the worst I think any of them have done is maybe assault. Oh, wait, no – I forgot Franky. Dude used to be a gang leader and mugged people. And maybe you can pin Sanji for sexual harassment."

Robin chose her words carefully. "You speak as though you are experienced in the realm of illegalities."

Nami just smiled, ever the cat with a favourite toy. "Perhaps I am. The difference between you and me is that I didn't get caught." The bell on the door chimed noisily. "Oh, hey, guys! No Brook?"

Four men walked through the door, and by God, they were a motley bunch. A boy with dark skin and a huge mass of black curls, about Nami's and Luffy's age, trotted over to the table first. "Hey, Nami! Brook said he wasn't coming today. The guy's like, eighty, so it sort of stands to reason, y'know. I mean, he'd be here if he could, but I just don't think he'd be well enough to help out too much, bless his heart."

"Aww. Well, I hope's he's feeling better, at least," she said.

"NAMI-SWAAAAAN~!" cried a joyous (and almost irritating in its obsequiousness) voice. A man a little older than Zoro pushed the other boy out of the way with no small force and reached for Nami's hand, kissing it. "My darling lady, it has been far too long since I have gazed upon your magnificence. Your beauty has only intensified since last I have seen you!"

"H-hello, Sanji. Good to see you, too. Now stop being creepy; we've got a few introductions all around to get out of the way."

The blond man, or Sanji, finally noticed Robin. He released his breath in something of a reversed gasp of appreciation. He then got down on one knee and proceeded to be as creepy as possible. "Oh, my dark, delicate flower. Forgive me. Only my bonds of kinship and affection for your companion have kept me from acknowledging your breath-taking features for this long. Accept my humblest apologies and my utter devotion to your stunning…" he sighed, in seeming ecstasy, "…_everything_."

"Asshole, get off the floor and stop perving on every woman you mee- woah," the boy Sanji had tossed carelessly to the floor earlier said, having regained his balance and caught a look at the new girl's face. "Uh – er, nice to meet you, ma'am," he said, bowing slightly. "I'm Usopp. I'm one of Luffy's friends. We all are, actually. The blithering idiot intent on kissing the ground you walk on is Sanji."

"I gathered as much," Robin said, smiling slightly.

The other two had remained silent, or had settled for simply laughing at their friends in the background until now.

The first to step forward was a very young-looking boy, perhaps in his mid-teens. He was very pale, as though he had spent much of his time indoors, with large wire-rimmed glasses and messy brown hair that was hidden under a rather ridiculous red hat. Books – apparently on medicine and biology – were showing through the broken zipper on his backpack. Robin liked him already. "I'm Tony Chopper. You can call me either name; I don't mind."

Nami cut in. "Call him Chopper. It sounds so much more dangerous than he actually is, so it freaks the piss out of people who hear us call him that. They start thinking he's a serial killer all Dexter-style and it's fantastic."

"And I'm Franky!" boomed the remaining man. This man might have been any age from his late twenties to mid-thirties. He didn't look much like the gang leader that Nami said he was. His hair was ridiculous and – of all colours – dyed bright sky blue. His nose appeared to be false, and Robin did her best not to look too hard at it. Upon further inspection, his legs were also both prosthetics, which was certainly not hidden by the fact that he was wearing beach clothes… in mid-Autumn. "Nice to meetcha, sister."

She shook his hand calmly, although her insides were in an uproar. With a crowd as noticeable as this one, they were going to get caught faster than Kim Kardashian filed for divorce.

* * *

><p>"Oh, Luuuuuuuuffyyyyyyy," Ace sang, tapping out a beat on the door to room 2016A. "Guess what I gooooooot."<p>

The little window was flung open. "What? Whatwhatwhatwhatwhat? Can I eat it? Is it a rocket launcher? Giant robot? Oh my God, you got me a giant robot, didn't you? Or a pony. I'll settle for a pony."

"Jeez, now you've ruined it. I feel all inadequate now. It's just most of the extra meat from the dining hal-"

"Oh my God, that's so much better than a pony! Gimmeeeeee!"

Ace found that his 'what-the-fuck' face was becoming his mainstay expression when around Luffy. At least it wasn't too hard to make him happy. He forked over what meat he'd managed to lift from the kitchens and grinned at the delighted squeals. "There's mostly pork, but I got you a little leftover London Broil too. Some of the sauce was still left, so lucky you."

This had become routine for them. It seemed to work well. Ace would nick something like food (often meat, because it was Luffy's favourite, but the guy ate pretty much anything and everything in sight. He might bitch, but he was always grateful) and after Luffy had finished eating, they would chat about anything that came to mind. Luffy knew pretty much everything about the inner workings of the establishment, and when Ace needed to ask something that he wasn't sure Marco could or would answer, he went straight to Luffy. When there was nothing to ask about, they just talked about random shit. Where they had each gone to school. Their respective families, although Ace only ever mentioned his mother's side of the family and Luffy had never actually known either of his parents. What their favourite colour was. Just random shit like that. Ace surprised himself with how much he enjoyed just… talking. All throughout school and college, he had been immersed in his studies. Yeah, there were a couple of cool people he'd known, but he'd never gone out of his way to talk to them unless he needed something from them. While his peers had been social animals and friendly to a fault, Ace had done everything in his power to be mildly pleasant and intelligent, but distant. There was no-one from those years who disliked him (save for those he'd beaten up as a kid with major anger-management issues, but he didn't count them, because frankly, every last one of the little bastards probably deserved it), but there was no-one who was a close friend, either.

Luffy was different. Well, really, he was different in a _lot_ of ways, not just in terms of how Ace felt about him. He was so non-judgmental, it was amazing. Or, actually, he did pass judgment, but unlike everyone else on God's green earth, he would rescind it with no trouble whatsoever if information was presented to the contrary of his opinion. He could change his mind with no damage to his pride, and that was incredible. He could never lose an argument because he was so willing to change his opinion in accordance with what was right and not with his arbitrary opinion. No-one did that. No-one but Luffy.

There was something innocent and kind and precious about Luffy that made Ace feel like he was something to be protected. Something to hold and encourage to grow to its full potential. There was always some kind of deep excitement in Ace whenever he thought about what Luffy's future could have held, had he never been admitted to the sanatorium. It was like seeing the baby pictures of someone famous and knowing, just _knowing_, that one day that child was going to be something amazing.

He knew he shouldn't want to free a patient. It was a bad fucking idea, and would probably do more damage to Luffy than anyone else. He knew it was a bad idea, but he still felt deep inside that it was the right thing to do.

Fuck.

He'd never said a word, and he had no plans to do so. For one thing, it might get him fired, and Luffy's words when they first met about no-one coming around to talk to him rang over and over in Ace's head. If Ace was let go, who would be there for Luffy? The kid was obviously starved both of food and human attention, and his appetite for both was endless. Then it raised another question: if Luffy was this lonely, how many others like him were around the sanatorium, desperate for human contact and commonly ignored? It seemed that Marco, thank heavens, interacted with people on every floor and got on well with them all. After watching the other security guards, Ace would say that the Golightly twins cared a little about the patients, but not as much as Marco did. Joe didn't seem to give even the tiniest of shits, and Norton, as advertised, just sat on his fat ass all day. So, Ace was resolved to meet folk around the place. Maybe there might be a better place to suddenly decide to start making friends, but face it – these people needed friends more than anyone in the world outside the sanatorium. Ace was there, and willing to fill the need. What else was there?

Luffy was somehow already finished with the massive pile of meat that Ace had slipped him through the bars of the window. "Got any more?" he asked, licking the sauce from the London Broil off of his fingers.

"I hope you washed your hands," Ace muttered. "I didn't bring any more. Couldn't carry any more, actually. I think they've already packed up the rest. Sorry."

"Awww. Well, maybe tomorrow. Thanks for today, man!"

"No problem."

"So, where were we?"

Ace paused. "I think we were talking about something to do with a murder in your family…?"

"Oh, yeah!" Luffy clapped his hands together, a manic grin on his face. "My Great-Great-Aunt Gabrielle killed her husband. We're sure of it. Auntie Marie said it, so it's gotta be true."

"Who is Auntie Marie? And why the hell would Gabrielle kill her husband?"

"Auntie Marie…" Luffy screwed up his face in thought. "I think she might be my Memere's sister. There's Norman, Marie, and Helene – that's my Memere – and they're all siblings, I think. Aunt Gabrielle was _their_ Aunt. They say she killed her husband 'cause he was Communist. Poison. Nothing ever got proven, though. Apparently, Pepe heard Auntie Marie talking with Memere and Auntie Joan about it in French. He couldn't understand a word until Auntie Joan has a spaz attack and gasps, "_MUUUUR_-DER?" – just like that, too! But then Memere was like, "Shut up, Joan; not in front of the kids, 'cause Mom and Aunt Christelle were playing in the next room."

"Your family is batshit-insane. I'm just putting that out there."

"And you've only heard about Mom's side of the family. Dad's side is worse. Bunch of military guys. On Mom's side it's all inventors and geniuses and crazy women. On Dad's side, pretty much everybody is in prison except Grandpa," Luffy said. He didn't sound at all ashamed.

"In prison, huh? What did they do?" asked Ace.

"Well, Great-Uncle Davi robbed banks. We still don't know where he hid the stuff he stole and he's been dead for three years."

Ace laughed in disbelief, rubbing his face. "Now I know where you get it from."

"Aww, you're just saying that," Luffy said.

"Murderers on one side-"

"Only the one and you can't prove a thing!"

"-and bank robbers on the other. Beautiful. Don't tell other people about this. They might think you inherited more than your looks," Ace said.

"But I like telling these stories!" Luffy whined.

"Don't get me wrong; they're great stories. I'm just saying you should wait until you've found somebody you can trust not to jump to wild conclusions before you go telling everyone that your family is full of felons." Ace stopped. Footsteps were coming down the stairs to basement one.

"Hey, Ace!"

Ace sighed in relief. "Oh, hey, Marco. What do you need?"

"Ace, I know you're supposed to get out of here in an hour or two, but I have a massive favour to ask of you. Can you take my shift tonight and tomorrow? I was supposed to take the night shifts – I signed up for it and everything – but there's a family emergency and I gotta go. Please, please, _please_ can you take them?" Marco asked.

"Er… yeah, sure. What happened?"

Marco grimaced. "My mum just got diagnosed with breast cancer."

"Holy shit. I'm so sorry, Marco," Ace said. "I hope she's okay."

"Thanks. We kind of expected it, truth be told. We've got a hell of a family history of it. Since everybody else's cancer responds to chemo, hopefully Mum's will, too. See you later and again, thank you so much!" Marco dashed back up the stairs.

"Damn. That's awful," Ace muttered.

"Yeah. I think it would be way worse to inherit something like that than to inherit a habit of breaking laws," Luffy said.

"No question. Well," Ace said, turning back with a slight smile, "looks like I'm going to be hanging out a little longer than usual."

* * *

><p>(AN): Back from vacation and I come armed with a double-update. There was no Wi-fi there, which is why I didn't post it earlier when I originally finished it.

Call me unoriginal, but Luffy's stories of family members are actually stories of my family members with some names changed. And yes, we are totally convinced that she murdered her husband. She's long dead, though, so proving it isn't going to do much of anything even if we manage it.

Our bank-robbing uncle is another matter entirely...

I know you all know this, but breast cancer is awful. My family has a major problem with early on-set breast cancer. It almost seems like someone new in the family is diagnosed every five years. It's terrible. Get tested. Do self-checks. If you have a family history, take the risk very VERY seriously. Just... take care of yourselves, you guys. If something as horrible as cancer is your inheritance, at least figure it out early so that you have a better fighting chance. Knowledge is power, and, in some cases, a matter of life and death.

Much love,

Auntie


	4. I Lay Motionless in Bed

Part two of the double-update! ^^

**Chapter 4**

It was basic recon. Zoro was used to this kind of shit. And some archaeologist – not a soldier, but a goddamn _archaeologist_ – was telling him how to do his job? Oh, hell no. He was going to do this his way, her carefully crafted plans be damned. In his experience, the best-laid plans always went to shit in the first five minutes, anyway.

Okay, so he was in. It hadn't been that hard – some guy with a thatch of bright blond hair had practically exploded out of the building, and slipping in after him had been the easiest thing ever. Hiding in the men's bathroom until after visiting hours were over was almost easier. Security was lax around here, even during the day. At night, it was like a fucking ghost town, except instead of ghosts, you had crazy people. Charming.

The first basement was pretty boring. Thank God all the stairs were all in the same place and in full view of the front door, so Zoro knew to bypass this area and not get hideously lost like he normally would have been. The only use that archaeologist woman seemed to really have was in her access to maps, not that Zoro had had the foresight to bring one of the damn things with him. She, in a fit, had decided to confiscate them. What was she, his mother? What was she going to try to do next; send him to his room?

Room 2016A was supposed to be in the second basement somewhere, right? The basements were just long hallways with doors on either side. How hard could it be?

Oh, shit, there was somebody here. Security. Shiiiiiiiiiiiit. His torch gave him away, laid out on the floor in front of – would you have it – Room 2016A. Zoro felt his heart give a leap as he heard Luffy's voice through a little window at the top of the door.

"Hold up, Luffy. I think I heard something over there."

"Relax, Ace, it was probably just somebody in that room, there. People _do_ live here, you know."

"Yeah, but they don't leave their rooms after dark. I'm just gonna go check, okay? Be right back."

Oh, God damn it all, the guard picked up his torch and was shining it over in Zoro's direction. What was worse, there was almost nowhere to hide. His only option was the stairs. Zoro practically flew down them. He had no idea why he chose to head down. It was stupid and he knew it. He was just boxing himself in, but his legs had already started and it would be even dumber to go back up and run right into the guard. He had full and complete confidence that he could beat the shit out of any rent-a-cop on the market, but this guy… this guy was apparently a friend of Luffy's, which made that no longer an option.

Wait.

A friend of Luffy's.

…Interesting.

He stopped just as he hit the fourth basement. He could hear the guard's rubber soles punching the cement stairs above him. As he neared and flashed his torch into Zoro's face, he addressed him. "Hey, you."

"What are you doing here? You know damn well that visiting hours are over and you sure as hell don't work here," Ace said.

"Thanks there, Captain Obvious. You're friends with Luffy, yeah?"

Ace looked a little taken aback. "Er… yeah. Wait, and you're calling _me_ Captain Obvious?"

Zoro grinned. "Obviously. But that's not why I'm here."

"Then why are you?" Ace peered at him, then at the swords on his hip. "You're one of the two people Luffy busted out of prison two months ago. Roronoa Zoro, right?"

It was Zoro's turn to be surprised. He had made plans to beat anyone who figured out his identity comatose, but the guard had yet to so much as twitch in the direction of a weapon or a phone. "How did you know that?"

He shrugged. "I do my homework on my friends when they're in a place like this."

"…I suppose that's reasonable."

"And I suppose you're here to… I don't know, break him out of here like he did for you, or something?" Ace asked, half-sarcastic.

"Exactly." Ace froze and stared the man hard in the face. "You going to do something about it?"

"…Do you have a way of getting the doors open?" Ace finally asked.

The question caught Zoro by surprise. "I've got my swords." He rattled the hilts for effect.

"Not gonna work," Ace said, shaking his head. "The locks are pick- and sword-proof. They also have giant titanium fucking bars holding them closed."

"Then give me the keys." Zoro thumbed one sword slightly out of its sheath in the eventuality that he would need to threaten the guard a little to get the keys.

"Do you see any keys on me, dumbass?" …No. There weren't any keys anywhere on that thing that was meant to look like Batman's utility belt but just ended up making everyone look like a plumber. "I don't have them. They're all with Norton, and he's locked in himself. There's no way into these rooms tonight."

"…Tonight?" Zoro asked, eyebrow quirked.

Ace sighed. "Listen, my name is Ace. You already know I'm friends with Luffy, and you wouldn't be trying to break him out if you didn't hold him in at least some measure of high regard. I don't think Luffy belongs in here any more than you or I do. I can't help feeling that he's sane. Weird as fuck, but sane. I'm not a psychologist. I don't know how to tell if somebody's crazy or not. I don't know if letting him leave might hurt his mental health. Now, I don't know you and I have no reason to like or trust you. But if helping you out is going to help Luffy… fuck it. Sound reasonable?"

"So what are you suggesting here?" Zoro asked.

"There are two questions at play here: Is Luffy sane and if yes, why the fuck is he in here? Wait until tomorrow night. I've got the night shift again instead of the guy who normally does. During the day, I'll check with Luffy's files. If something seems fishy about his records, or if he seems treatable outside of this place, I'll get you the keys. If he really is crazy… I tell you to turn your ass right back around tomorrow night, but not before proving to you that Luffy really is better off here. I just want what's best for _him_."

Zoro took careful notice of Ace's eyes. They weren't the eyes of a liar. He meant every word he said. Something about his almost naïve willingness to work with criminals reminded him strongly of Luffy. "…Deal."

"All right. So for tonight, you might want to leave before Norton wakes up or stops watching porn in the camera room for long enough to see you walking around here."

"Mm." And with that, Zoro trekked up the stairs to the second basement. He could not resist swinging by Luffy's room after all this nonsense.

"Hey, retard."

"Zoro!" Luffy cried.

"Quiet down; you wanna get me caught?"

"Naw, not really. But didn't you already get caught? Ace?"

Zoro frowned. "For some reason, he wasn't too intent on catching me."

"See? He's nice. You're nice, too. That's why nobody's in the hospital right now," Luffy observed. He was probably right.

"Listen. Me 'n' Ace are going to try and see if maybe we can get you out tomorrow night. You want to leave, right?"

"Yeah," Luffy muttered. "It kind of sucks here. Ace isn't around _all_ the time, and nobody's around the rest of the time. And they never give me enough meat."

Zoro grinned at that. "Okay. If we manage to get you out, the first thing we are going to do is go to a steakhouse and someone is going to treat you to a massive meal. Not me, 'cause I'm broke. Somebody else."

"Told you we were going to be friends," Luffy said, grinning ear to ear.

"No promises, remember."

"Okay. See you tomorrow?"

"Yeah. See you then."

* * *

><p>(AN): Yes, it's shorter, but y'know what? You're getting two chapters tonight. Shut up.

For those who might not know, 'torch' is a British colloquialism for a flash-light. I'm really used to it, but I just now remembered that some people might not be familiar with the term and wonder why, if the torch was set on the floor, why the floor didn't catch fire. Well, now you know.


	5. Thought of You

WARNING: mentions of rape and suicide. I'll try to keep it as brief as possible. Also, politics, politics everywhere, and not a drop of honesty.

**Chapter 5**

He knew it was a bad idea, but Ace didn't sleep at all that night. Half of his night was spent planning how exactly he could gain access to Luffy's private files (due to the doctor-patient confidentiality, these were sealed to the public) and the other half was spent wondering what the hell he was doing.

Honestly, what _was_ he doing?

Helping an escaped criminal break a potentially criminally insane person out of a sanatorium. Yeah, 'cause _that_ sounded sane(!) This was one of those things you did not simply _do_. He started a mental list of all the things he could be charged with and possible ramifications, but stopped because it was depressing and just going to make him lose his nerve. In all honesty, what was the right thing to do here?

All right: examining Roronoa Zoro. Ace hadn't lied; he really did do his homework. Zoro used to be in a specialised unit of the military dealing in covert operations. Apparently, he had entered in basic training alongside a friend from home, a woman named Koshiro Kuina. A few months after joining their unit (together, of course), Kuina killed herself. Zoro found the suicide note she left for him, which explained that Kuina had been repeatedly raped by their commanding officer. Zoro had then gone on something of an almost-murder spree, and put everyone in the chain of command that might have known about his friend's sexual abuse in a coma. It seemed that the only thing that kept him from outright killing their commanding officer was the arrival of the authorities. He was still hooked up to various machines keeping him alive in a hospital at the Norfolk navy base, even though everyone else Zoro beat half to death had regained consciousness. One was paralysed from the waist down, of course, and another two had to have major facial reconstruction, but at least they were conscious.

To be honest, Ace didn't blame the guy. Okay, so maybe Zoro went a _little_ overboard. His motives were good ones, and besides, it took major stones to go into a room of guys all wearing guns with nothing but a sword and utterly decimate every last fucking one of them without getting a scratch. That was damn impressive all by itself. It made it all the more poignant that he had used his dead friend's sword to dispose of her abusers.

The guy was probably trustworthy. Of course, it wasn't going to be that easy to gain Ace's trust, but Zoro was at least on his way and had already earned a healthy amount of respect. Ace was oddly reminded of Luffy's actions in the way Zoro had gone ape-shit for the sake of a friend. They were well-matched, and perhaps that was how Luffy had known ahead of time that they would make great friends. The case had been in newspapers quite a bit at the time due to the sensational nature of the news, and it made sense that Luffy might hear about the details of the case and therefore about Zoro's motives and subsequent course of action. So far, the only thing Ace had considered nutty about Luffy was that he'd broken someone he didn't know out of prison, but that was explained with this. Okay, yeah, so it was a little reckless, but it was hardly certifiably insane. What other symptoms of true madness had Luffy shown? Ace came up rather blank. Sure, he acted like a kid, but to be honest, everyone his age still clung to the childhood that was rapidly slipping away. Ace was three years older and he still watched old Disney movies at eleven o' clock at night, singing along and occasionally inventing interpretive dances to the songs. That wasn't _that_ weird, right? Luffy had all of his memories, so it wasn't a symptom of regression; he was just childish. Ace knew people like that, and _they_ certainly weren't locked up in a nuthouse (although the world would probably be better off if some of them were).

Wait, was he trying to talk himself into this or out of this?

Is Zoro a good guy? Check.

Is Luffy sane? Check.

Am I going to lose my job for helping them? Check.

Am I probably also going to be going to prison? Only if you get caught, but check.

And then there was the second question: why was Luffy here if he wasn't a nutcase like everyone else? It still came down to needing that private file. Oh, mountains of bollocks.

The private files were kept, naturally, in filing cabinets in Manager Marshall's office.

Manager Marshall was a giant tub of a man, and appeared to be missing several teeth. He was also kind of a drunkard, not that anyone dared to make this observation out loud. They said he was a laughing and joking man (though his jokes were normally pretty offensive and crude) up until a certain point, at which he suddenly turned very mean with no warning at all. His temper was so nonlinear that it scared some people. You never knew how far was too far until it was too late.

Still, Manager Marshall was a man who loved his food. He took his time around lunch, taking a full hour instead of the half-hour allotted each of his employees. It made for a decent window for Ace to potentially slip in and get at the file cabinet. God willing, the door to the main office wouldn't be locked when he got there.

It was almost 1:00 already. The restrooms weren't that far from the main office, where Manager Marshall's office was back behind reception in a walled-off area. Ace decided to linger as unobtrusively as possible until he got a visual on Manager Marshall's departure. He usually took lunch outside of the facility, often at the Subway down the street, or, when he was feeling adventurous, the Thai place next door. Maybe if Ace was lucky, he'd take his sharp-nosed secretary with him like he occasionally did. The people in reception, aside from that one (Ace could never remember the guy's name – it might've been something vaguely Germanic, like Auge) were pretty dead to the world, and if they saw him hanging around, it probably wouldn't even register. He _did_ work there legitimately, after all.

12:58 pm and Manager Marshall was leaving with his secretary. Perfect. Ace still decided to wait a few minutes. Too much traffic might cause the receptionists to sit up and take notice of their surroundings once in a while. He closed himself into a bathroom stall and listened to some music to kill time.

1:07 pm and Ace had had enough of waiting.

Ace was a good actor. He'd joined drama club in high school at the urging of a couple people he'd found not entirely revolting (friends?), and had proven sufficient at it. He could sing fairly well (or at least he didn't make anyone wince, which was a major accomplishment in high school drama club musicals) and the rest, he simply viewed as being able to lie well. People tended to believe whatever you believed of yourself. So, he strode out of the bathroom and straight to Manager Marshall's office like he owned the damn place. No-one paid him a second look. Perfect. Just as long as he wasn't about to look very silly and suspicious in a second… No! The door was unlocked! Excellent. He closed the door normally. If you were too loud or too quiet, people noticed. Just act like you're supposed to be there and people will think you are, if they bother to think about you at all.

The file cabinet. Oh, praise the Lord; Manager Marshall had left the key ring right there, one of the keys still in the lock of the top drawer.

The top drawer contained letters A through F. That was no good. Luffy would be in the M section, for 'Monkey'. He had to fiddle with the keys a bit to find the right one for the next drawer down. G through L. It had to be the third one down. M! There it was! Ace thumbed around the files until he got the right one. He yanked it out, flushed with success, and wondered vaguely if he could just run with the file. He decided against it. It was only 1:12, and Manager Marshall wasn't supposed to be back for another 48 minutes. He could skim and leave everything exactly as he found it.

The first page was boring shit. Name, age, height, birthdate, birthplace, schooling, GPA (which was awful, by the way), immunisation information… boring.

The second page was where you got to the interesting bits. Surprisingly, Luffy's file was very thin. Most of the other files had been rather chunky. The second page was only second out of three or four pages, where most of the others had ten or twenty pages at least. Ace grabbed another file for reference – the file of one 'Monroe, Lawson'. His first page looked like Luffy's, but his second page and onward was full of treatment records, therapists' reports, prescribed medications, subsequent reports of changes to behaviour after the introduction of medication… All manner of things. Facilities he had attended in the past. Family histories of various psychological diseases or disorders.

But Luffy had none of that. Luffy's second page was pretty barren.

It looked like someone had intended to forge a typical patient's file with bullshit. Still, no treatment records. No prior therapy sessions or reports. No psychologists' contact information. Just his criminal record, a perfunctory diagnostic, and what looked to be a family history.

Ace had time. He could read the whole thing more thoroughly.

It turned out not to be a family history.

It just listed his family.

Monkey D Dragon.

…Oh, you had to be fucking kidding.

Monkey D Dragon had been a vocal politician in the Senate up until three years back, when he had been ousted by his own political party for his radical ideas. He'd lost his job, but he remained an outspoken lobbyist. There was a large amount of controversial debate surrounding him, and as a result, he was rather a household name.

Dragon lobbied for the abolition of anything that the original Constitution of the country had not made provisions for. Technically, he argued, the Constitution had specified that any powers not given the federal government explicitly were powers reserved to the states. As such, the Cabinet Departments of Education, Agriculture, Energy, Health and Human Services, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development were all unconstitutional and therefore illegal. Both major political parties had been horribly offended. They didn't want to lose power with the potential removal of so many Cabinet Departments, and so they ejected Dragon from their presence. They forbid him to campaign with party money, and running with a third party, Dragon stood no chance of reelection, even as an incumbent.

What they hadn't counted on was the sheer amount of support that Dragon received from the public. He hadn't been reelected, but people generally liked what he had to say. It said something about the country that the idea of following the most basic law of the land was a revolutionary one. People wanted government to be as it was meant to be, and certainly not as invasive as it currently was. Thus, Dragon earned a whole mess of haters.

Ace flipped back to the third page. It was a signed authorisation of Luffy's admittance to the mental hospital, courtesy of Cabinet Secretary Sengoku of the Department of Health and Human Services – one of the very people Luffy's father had given his career to get fired.

It all made sense.

Luffy's father Dragon pissed off politicians.

The politicians basically kidnapped his son and stuck him in a mental hospital. In prison, Luffy would be released once his sentence was served. In a mental hospital, they could keep him indefinitely, and remain untouchable by law enforcement.

This was one of the most fucked up things Ace had ever heard.

He ran his fingers through his hair and bit his bottom lip, something he did when stressed. There was no question. He was definitely helping Zoro get Luffy the hell out of here.

The door to the office slammed.

Ace jerked up in surprise and shock from his sitting position on the floor and made eye contact with Manager Marshall himself. Joe and Auge were right behind him. Ace paled.

"Well, now… Why would you need to look into the Monkey kid's file there, Ace?" Marshall asked, voice sickly-sweet. "I think we need to have a nice little talk."

* * *

><p>(AN): Went to the dentist today. I have six cavities. SIX! I brush my teeth every damn day! I use listerine! Dafuq is going on here? And now, because I'm writing this story, I'm knee-deep in conspiracy theories. Except now all of them involve dentists.

So, yeah. I don't think I'm going to stop writing tonight. I've gotten to a really good part of the storyline and you might get a double update if you're awesome. You can always tell when I'm excited about a story because I update more often. WOOOHOOOOOO~! This story hasn't got enough to it to last as long as 100 Days (_no_where near long enough, ehehehe), but hopefully, it'll still be engaging and long enough to get out everything that needs saying.

Anybody recognise Dragon's campaigning platform? Hint: the real-life guy is running as a Republican, but we all know he's Libertarian.


	6. And Where You'd Gone

AWWW, YISS MUTHAFUCKAHS. DOUBLE-UPDATE. AGAIN. WUUUUUUUUT?

**Chapter 6**

Ace felt his mouth quirking upwards in a nervous grin. He chuckled, but quickly bit it off. "…I'm fired, huh?"

Manager Marshall smiled and it did nothing to soothe Ace's nerves. "Oh, definitely."

Ace sighed. "Yeah; thought as much."

"After all, you _did_ lie on your resume."

"…Huh?" Ace raised an eyebrow. He hadn't lied on his resume. He'd definitely thought about it, considering his lack of working experience, but had eventually decided against it. Criminal charges might make him an even less appealing candidate for hire, so he'd just applied and hoped that they would look past his lack of record.

"You lied about your name," Marshall said, correctly interpreting the confused look on Ace's face. "Your name isn't Portgas D Ace. It's Gol D Ace."

Ace's blood ran cold and his jaw locked. God, no. They knew.

"Your daddy's Gol D Roger, ain't he? Old Roger and me, we go way back. Actually, Roger and Secretary Sengoku go way back, too. Guy's a fuckin' terrorist, isn't he?" Marshall asked.

Ace couldn't speak. The identity of his father was his best-kept secret. How did they find out?

"We did some looking up on you when we found security footage of you talking with some random guy with swords. A guy who was here without authorisation. Turns out the guy's a convict. Now what would he be doing here? I asked myself. And more importantly, why isn't my security guard kicking him the fuck out?" Marshall grinned, showing his incomplete rows of teeth. "Turns out your daddy can be unearthed with a little digging. I started with finding your birth certificate, which was a bitch since your name isn't what you said it was. Found it, though! Found your ma, and then went through marriage records to see who she shacked up with to get you. It wasn't particularly complicated, but it _was_ time-consuming. Be impressed. And now I can nail your ass to the ground properly."

"I'm not my father," Ace finally choked out. "You can't fire or prosecute me for his crimes."

Marshall just smiled wider. "Who said anything about prosecution?"

Ace's breaths were coming faster now. He couldn't possibly mean…

"Auge. Get some sedatives. Joe. Hold him down."

Ace all but exploded up from his seat on the floor, trying to rush past Joe's outstretched hands for the door and freedom. He hadn't expected Joe's arm, built like steel cable, to slam into his windpipe. He collapsed to the floor, coughing and clutching his throat. Joe grabbed his arms and yanked them behind his back.

Auge rooted around in one of the drawers in Marshall's desk, pulling out a syringe. He took off the cap and flicked the barrel to get rid of air bubbles, watching gleefully as Ace's eyes widened and he began struggling for all he was worth.

"No! Help! _SOMEBODY FUCKING HELP!_" he screamed. With a damaged windpipe, though, his cries weren't particularly loud. "Oh, God – somebody help me!"

"Nice try, darlin'," Marshall said. "You're going to be a registered crazy person from this day forth. No-one is going to listen to you ever again. Just let it happen. We'll take good care of you. We promise."

"Joe, please hold his arm still for me please," Auge said quietly. Joe held out Ace's left arm, stretched taught. Ace bit down a cry as his arm was practically yanked out of its socket and began hyperventilating.

"You can't fucking do this. You're going to get caught, and then you're all going to rot in Hell or prison; whichever comes first," he spat.

"Oh, I'm prepared for that," Marshal said. "I've got friends down there awaiting my arrival, you see. And besides, the government is fully on my side. Who gives a shit about a terrorist's son? Or the son of a goddamn Communist, like Luffy? Really, this is all for your own protection. Would you prefer the world knew what you were? Do it," he told Auge.

Ace watched, cold terror clutching at him as the needle plunged into his arm and was emptied of whatever the hell was in that barrel.

As soon as it was out, Ace's brain kicked into high gear.

He took full advantage of the fact that Joe was holding him very firmly and lifted his legs up off the floor. He jammed them both straight into the much larger man's groin. Joe dropped with a pitiful groan, letting go of Ace. He grabbed the chair behind Marshall's desk and slammed it into Auge's face. His head bounced off the file cabinets with a beautiful _thunk_ and he lay on the floor, prone and unmoving.

Marshall made a dive for Ace, but he simply put a hand on the man's shoulder and pushed him down further than his lunge had originally been intended to go. Ace jumped up, using the fat man's back as a springboard to get to the door behind him. He flung it open and ran like fuck.

His hands were shaking by the time he was in the parking lot in front of his Honda. The keys would barely go in the ignition. He didn't know how long he had until whatever they had forced into his bloodstream took effect. His heart pounded in his ears and he could hear his own laboured breathing. In the rearview mirror, he could see that he looked like hell. It didn't matter. He backed out of his parking space and floored the gas pedal. He needed to get as far away from here as possible. Maybe if he got far enough away, he could just wait for the effects of the drugs to wear off, and then go get help from the authorities – those that weren't corrupt, at any rate.

* * *

><p>Manager Marshall D Teach pushed himself up from the floor, livid. "What the fuck was that?" he asked Joe. "What part of 'hold him still' did you not get?"<p>

"I'm sorry, sir," Joe said. The gargantuan man got to his feet shakily. "I'll go find him."

"Yeah; you better. If he's not back here by nightfall, you're going in a cell with him." He thought a moment. "And when you haul his ass back here, we're going to make him nice and cosy in the fourth basement. I figure he deserves it after being so uncooperative."

* * *

><p>After the fifth or sixth mile from the sanatorium and onto the highway, Ace's vision began to blur. Panic, as though it hadn't already been in play, kicked in fully. He was going to get everyone on the road killed if he kept going like this.<p>

He pulled onto the shoulder, flashing his hazard lights. He stumbled out of the car, hoping someone might give him a lift – possibly to hospital.

But then – and his spine chilled at the very thought – what if someone from the sanatorium followed him here? What if they tried to drag him back?

Ace's brain was slowing, but he was still a fucking genius in what was left of his mind. There was a speed limit sign a yard or two behind where he had stopped his car. He unhooked the standard-issue handcuffs from his belt and clapped one end around one wrist, and the other around the pole. The sign would prevent the cuff from simply sliding off the top, and he still had some measure of freedom of movement. But the key. If they managed to wrestle the key from him, it was pointless. They would also expect him to try to stick it in a pocket, hide it in his mouth, or toss it into the grass. He needed to be able to unlock himself quickly if someone willing to take him into their vehicle came by, but he didn't want the key to be easy to locate on his person. His consciousness was fast fading and if he passed out before they came for him, he would have to hide it somewhere they would never look.

He pulled his pocketknife out of his belt and stabbed deeply into the rubber heel on his left shoe. As he suspected, it was hollow. He pushed the key in through the small slit. Since the rubber was thick and well-formed, the cut was invisible unless you were looking for it. Problem solved.

Ace found his knees giving out on him as he put the knife away and slowly sank to the grass. His vision was swirling around him and going dark. He couldn't think. He could barely breathe. He collapsed around the base of the speed limit sign, eyes slipping closed.

* * *

><p>A huge damn Hummer pulled alongside the Honda CR-V on the side of the road. A man no less massive than his choice of car clambered out, walking back to the sign a little ways back.<p>

At the base of it was the figure of a young man, face flushed with fever and unconscious. The man felt around his throat for a pulse, satisfied when he found one, faint though it was.

"Boss?" Joe said into the walkie-talkie. "I found him. He got on I-95, but not far."

Static crackled. "Good job. Now haul him back."

Joe poked the cuff around Ace's wrist. "Er… It may not be as simple as all that. He cuffed himself to a road sign."

"…You've gotta be fucking kidding me. Well, get some damn wire-cutters and _then_ haul him back! No. No – I'll send Auge with it. Don't leave him out there; he might wake up and escape."

"I don't think he's going much of anywhere," Joe said. "I don't see a key anywhere on him."

"No chances. You fucked it up once when you underestimated him. I see no reason to give you a chance to do the exact same damn thing. We take no chances with this guy and that's final."

Joe sighed. "Yes, sir."

"Good." And with that, the transmission cut off.

It was another twenty minutes before Auge arrived, bearing the heavy-duty wire-cutters. They clipped the chain of the handcuffs and Joe slung Ace's prone form over a shoulder carelessly. Ace moaned quietly but didn't wake up.

As they walked back into the sanatorium with Ace in tow, the waiting Marshall rubbed his hands together. "Good work. Nice job not fucking it up this time. Take him down to the fourth basement. Room number 4103B has been cleared up for his use."

And so Joe had to carry Ace's heavy ass all the way down the stairs. As he hit the second basement, he encountered a little trouble.

"Ace! Ace! What the hell is going on? _Ace!_" cried Luffy. "What did you _do_ to him?"

"Shut up!" Marshall yelled. "Keep bitching and you're going straight down to fourth basement, same as him!"

Luffy reeled back in shock. No. Ace was his friend. Ace was his best friend while he was in this place. Ace looked out for him when almost nobody else did. Why in the hell would they take him down to the fourth basement? His body had been so still… like the dead. Luffy slowly closed the little window in his door and hoped that Ace was all right. They wouldn't kill him. They _couldn't_ kill him. Ace made a truce with Zoro, who was the type to hospitalise first and ask questions later. That made him invincible. He had to be okay.

The door to Room 4103B flew open and bounced off of the padded wall behind it.

"Put him on the bed and strap him down," Marshall instructed. They did so.

As Joe was tightening the strap positioned at the crook of Ace's elbows, the young man stirred slightly.

"Mm…" he muttered, voice soft as the wind.

"Enjoying your little nap, Roger's brat?" Marshall asked.

Ace's eyes slowly dragged themselves open. "Y-you… fu…cking… bas…tard."

He was met with a harsh slap across the face that knocked him unconscious all over again. "Watch your mouth, you little fucker," Marshall said coldly. 'Talk to me that way again and I'll keep you sedated from now until Judgment Day." He smiled. "Hell, I might do that anyway. Toodles. Let's go." With that, he strode out, and the others left as well, closing the door behind them, leaving Ace in utter darkness.

* * *

><p>(AN): Sorry, Ace, honey. You know I don't like fucking with you, but it had to be done. They'll get theirs.

Told you I might manage a double update tonight, as well! I'm feeling very accomplished. I'm a happy camper. For all the drama and shit, I kind of like this chapter. It's got action. I normally can't write action sequences, but this one came pretty easily. Dunno exactly how that one works.."


	7. And the World Spins Madly On

Be very impressed. Very VERY impressed. I never update this frequently, but now? It's nothing. When I have to go back to school, it's gonna suck._  
><em>

**Chapter 7**

"…And then he just let me head on out," Zoro finished.

Nami and Robin exchanged glances, but most of the others just looked excited.

"You mean we might not have to fight anybody?" Usopp asked, delighted. "He's just gonna hand us the keys and let us go? That's fantastic! Zoro, you're amazing!"

"I can't believe we got so lucky!" Chopper said.

"Yeah, well… neither can I. I mean I _really_ can't believe it," Nami said.

"What do you mean?"

Zoro understood instantly. "You think it's a trap, don't you?"

She nodded. "What else could it be? We don't know this guy. We don't know anything about him. Luffy might have a good opinion of him, but let's face it: Luffy's pretty easy to fool."

"I already thought of that. He didn't look like a liar to me," Zoro said.

"Zoro, do you think you can remember his exact phrasing?" Robin asked.

He growled. "Nah. He was kind of a chatty bastard. Too much to remember. But I remember he said, 'I just want what's best for _him'_."

"'Him' meaning Luffy?"

"Yeah. Said that he was going to check with Luffy's files, and if everything checked out, he was going to kick my ass out of there, but if things got weird…" he shrugged. "Said he'd get me the keys."

"And his name was Ace?" Nami asked.

"Yeah."

Robin frowned. "Portgas D Ace?"

"Never got his full name."

"You know the name, sister?" Nami asked.

"Yes… Let me check…" She unearthed a manilla folder from her purse, setting it down on the island table in the kitchen in Sanji's home, where they had agreed to meet, since it was the closest to the sanatorium. Robin flipped through a few of the pages before coming to the right one. "…Here. Portgas D Ace is the newest member of the security team. He was only hired last week." She looked up. "It is certainly possible that he feels no loyalty to the job or his employers. He is a recent university graduate, so it is also possible that he applied for more than one job. Even if he were to be fired from this one, it may well be that he has another lined up. It provides little incentive for him to do his job to the letter if he came to think an aspect of it was immoral. He may be legitimate. There is very little keeping him in the sanatorium as it is. He has degrees in very lucrative fields and could secure a position in any number of fine establishments. He may have been telling the truth," she said.

"Wait. If his education is so awesome, why is he working in a loony bin in the first place?" Franky asked.

"Job experience," muttered Usopp. "Just giving himself a leg up into the job field so people won't reject him just because he hasn't had a real job before. It's damn hard to get into the market nowadays and maybe this was his way of rounding out his skills to make himself more marketable."

"But at the end of the day, you're all saying that his motivation to help out Luffy might easily be higher than his motivation to keep his job, huh?" Nami asked. Heads nodded all around the table.

"I'm telling you: he looked like he meant it," Zoro said.

She sighed. "I guess we have no choice. If he really did mean it – and I'm still not convinced he did! – then he could be a Godsend. If we can get Luffy out of there and not have to worry about security, getting caught, or doing property damage, then it'll be the ideal scenario. Let's try not to piss this guy off in the meantime, all right? When did he say to come back?"

"Tonight."

Nami frowned. "Not much time to prepare at all. It's already six and it's starting to get dark out. You don't think he'll reschedule for when we're more prepared?"

"It has to be tonight. Said he was covering someone else's shift for these two nights only," Zoro said.

"Fuck," she muttered. "I swear, this really does smell like a trap to me." She turned to Robin. "Sister, you're staying here. Chopper and Franky, you two had better stay out of it as well just in case I'm right. If they end up getting us, they're not getting all of us. Usopp, I want you to leave right now and keep eyes on the building for any weird shit. You're going to let us know the instant you feel like you can call shenanigans. Actually, Sanji, I'm going to ask you to stay behind as well. If all goes according to plan, we shouldn't need very many people on hand at all. If things don't go according to plan, it still is going to be better to have fewer people around to get caught, and I'm not taking any chances that you're going to see a pretty nurse and start skirt-chasing, because I know you too damn well by now."

"What? I can't appreciate the beauty of a lovely woman when I see one?"

"Not when the freedom of your friend depends on your ability to keep your concentration, you can't," she said. "So Brook, Franky, Robin, Chopper, and Sanji are staying. Zoro, Usopp, and I are going to pick up Luffy, even though only Zoro and I are going into the actual building. We all clear?"

"Got it," they chorused, some with evident disappointment.

"Then Usopp and Zoro, grab a radio set. I expect full communication at all times."

* * *

><p>Usopp had his binoculars on the highest possible setting as he peered through the wind shield of Nami's car into the sanatorium. "Er… Nami?"<p>

"What?" crackled her voice through the radio headset.

"Is that him? The giant buff dude? Is that Ace? 'Cause if not, we might have trouble right here in River City. I'm just saying."

"Hang on; lemme check with the sword nut." Momentary silence. "Fuck!" she swore.

"It's not him, is it?"

"No shit, Sherlock. Any chance you can see a name tag or something on him?"

Usopp strained his eyes. "I'm sorry. It's too dark and the words are too small and they're _way_ too far away for me to read."

She sighed. "Well, at least you tried."

"Gee, thanks(!)"

Usopp kept his eyes locked on the burly security guard. "Hang on, guys… He's going into the bathroom. You've got an opening! Haul ass downstairs now!"

The door to the women's restroom opened and the shapes of Nami and Zoro darted out, quickly heading down the stairs to the lower levels at breakneck paces. Thank goodness they hadn't decided to stay in the men's restroom, as Nami had flatly refused to enter what she deemed, 'a nest of man-filth and excrement'.

They were on their own now. There was no way for Usopp to see into the basements. He sent up a small prayer that they, and Luffy, would be all right.

"Way to go, genius(!)" Nami growled. "Your guy isn't here. What was that about this not being a trap?"

"Oh, shut up," Zoro said.

"_Excuse me?"_

"Luffy's on the second basement. Come on."

"That's not an answer! And besides, even if we find Luffy, we haven't got the keys. Explain how _that_ one's gonna work, mister."

Zoro heaved air, exasperated. Women were so damn nit-picky. "If Ace isn't waiting with the keys down there, then we leave. All right?"

"…Fine. What room is he is, can you remember?"

"Two-oh-sixteen A, I think."

"Is that it?" Nami asked, pointing. …Oh. Somehow, Zoro had lost count of which floors they'd passed. They were already in the second basement.

They ran up to the door. Nami knocked on the door softly. "Luffy!" she hissed. "You in there?"

The little barred window at the top of the door slid open. "Guys!" he cried softly.

"Luffy! Hey, man, we're going to get you out of here as soon as we find-"

"They took him! You've got to help him!" Luffy said, voice slightly panicked.

"…Took who?"

"Ace!"

Nami shot a look at Zoro, who just looked mildly perturbed. "Where did they take him? He's supposed to be giving us the keys to get you out."

Luffy shook his head. "I dunno what happened, but they took him down to the fourth basement. He looked… _dead_ when they carried him down there. They hurt him! Please, help him."

Zoro kept his face schooled, but a tiny pool of guilt was welling inside him. He had asked Ace to help him, and Ace had obviously paid the price. "We're here to get _you_ out, not him," he said, hiding his thoughts.

"No!" Luffy said firmly. "He needs help more than me! Zoro…"  
>He held the eyes of the man he'd broken out of prison on nothing more than a whim. "…Please."<p>

To Nami's amazement, Zoro finally bowed his head. "All right. If you say so."

"…The hell? We're gonna leave? Just like that?" she cried after Zoro as he began to make for the staircase. "Newsflash, crazy-pants! We don't have the keys to wherever they're keeping Ace any more than we have the keys to Luffy's door! What the hell are you planning to do even if you find him?"

"Talk," Zoro said gruffly, not stopping. "The guy was supposed to get into Luffy's file and see what was what. I don't know if he got a look at it before they got him, but if he did, then it's worth talking to him. Locked up or not, he should still be able to talk. He also must have had a plan for getting at the keys in the first place, and I'd like to know what it was."

For Zoro, this was exceedingly reasonable, so Nami let it go. She still kept looking back towards Luffy's door, the guilt on her face obvious. "We're coming back!" she whisper-yelled.

"I know," Luffy said, smiling at her. And he did.

* * *

><p>Ace had been in a drugged haze for a while, unsure if he dreaming or awake. When his head began to clear many hours later, he had found that the pen he kept in his pocket could be used to undo the straps holding his body in place. Well, he might have been free of the bed, but he definitely was not free of the room.<p>

Like all the doors of the sanatorium cells, there was no latch or doorknob on the inside. Actually, he could barely find the door. The entire room was extensively padded on the inside. It must have been a feature of the fourth basement rooms exclusively, because he didn't remember seeing any padding in Luffy's cell, from what he could see behind that little window in the door.

He didn't want to admit it, but he was scared. Seriously fucking terrified. He was an idiot fresh out of college. He'd never dealt with something even remotely like this before.

Ace at least managed to locate the door by the slight space between it and the floor. From how little light was coming in through it, he suspected that nighttime had fallen.

His eyes widened. Oh, holy shit. He had told Zoro to come back tonight. Oh, Hell.

Ace sat there, in the dark, staring at nothing and feeling immense guilt every time he thought about it. He was only pulled out of his small reverie of self-loathing an hour or two later, when someone tapped on his door.

With no small amount of panic, he jumped onto the bed and began trying to make it look like he had never escaped the straps holding him down. He was failing rather remarkably.

"Ace?" a voice whispered loudly. "You in there?"

It didn't sound like Marshall, whoever it was. Ace slowly got off the bed, unsure as to exactly what he was supposed to do at this point.

"Yeah," he whispered into the crease between the door and the wall. "Who is this?"

"It's Zoro."

"Shit!" Ace said before he could stop himself. "Sorry, man. I really didn't expect them to pull this on me."

"Eh, whatever." Ace could picture the man shrugging, the picture of a man unconcerned.

"Luffy's completely sane. They're keeping him here for political reasons. They hate his dad, so they're keeping him here until the end of time instead of making him serve a year or two in prison. His file has got practically nothing in it. You've got to get him out of here," he said.

"What, seriously? I knew they were corrupt, but this is…" It was female voice, and one Ace certainly didn't recognise.

"Who is that?"

"It's Nami. She's a friend of Luffy's."

"…Oh. I'm sorry, but I didn't get a chance to get at the keys to his cell. They caught me when I was going through the files. They managed to find the security footage after all, and they found you on it, Zoro. They'll be keeping a better eye on it tonight. You'd better run."

"Not before you tell me how to get both you and Luffy out of here. I need those keys. Tell me what you know."

"…Actually, I've been thinking. You might not need the keys."

"What? Of course we need the keys! You said we needed the fucking keys!" Zoro snapped.

"I was wrong. You don't need the keys – you just need the guys who have the keys to use them," said Ace conspiratorially.

Outside the door, Nami and Zoro exchanged looks. "And what is that supposed to mean?" Nami asked.

"I have an idea that might get both of us out. This morning, I brought a little insurance with me, but right now, it's not on my person. I know how to get to it, though. I'm going to need you to smuggle me some shit and some time. Approximately a week."

"…Go on."

* * *

><p>(AN): And you were impressed by how fast I used to update 100 Days. Maybe I can fit in a triple update today. New record. We'll find out. I'm seriously so psyched about writing more of this. I have this giant convoluted plan (the best kind of plan, in my opinion), and you'll just have to find out what it is later.

Next chapter: Marco finds out just what all can go wrong when you leave the house for two days. SHIT GOES _DOWN_. Also, you know you missed Whitebeard, or in this, the good Mister Newgate.."


	8. And Everything That I Said I'd Do

**Chapter 8**

Marco loved his mother, but in all honesty, she was emotionally draining. She would always bitch about how he didn't have a wife, how she wanted grandchildren, how she would demand that he admit to being secretly gay even though he wasn't and no, she wouldn't believe him even if he told her so, and how she would say that his hair was going away and he couldn't even get mad, and how she would tell him he needed to go to church more and pray for a nice Catholic girl and some goddamn hair, and how if he cursed in her presence one more time, she was going to box his 48-year-old ears, cancer be damned.

He loved her, but the woman was psycho. Marco had stayed by her side for two whole days and he felt perfectly awful. He could only thank Heaven that his stepfather came in just in time to free up Marco to get the hell out. Bless the man. Marco, to this day, had no idea why anyone sane would marry a woman like his mother.

He was actually looking forward to dealing with insane people. That summed it up quite well.

The door swung open and Marco breathed the familiar fumes of medications and cleaning fluid, mixed with whatever the lunch ladies had decided to concoct today, and relaxed for the first time in two or three days. He was feeling alert and refreshed after getting a full night's sleep for once. The night shift normally did quite a number on him, but this time he had had to attend to an even worse fate than ruining his sleep cycle.

Speaking of which…

Marco was heading for the employee locker room when he saw Norma coming out of the women's restroom.

"Still changing in there? Oh, come on, Norma. Joe and Norton never go into the locker rooms, your brother won't give a shit, and me 'n' Ace won't look and you know it. What's the harm?"

"I may work in a nuthouse, but I've got my dignity. And besides, men _always_ look, so don't you give me that shit," Norma said haughtily. She paused. "Oh… wait. You haven't heard yet?"

Marco frowned. "Heard what yet?"

"That's right… you've been out for a few days. I heard your mom got sick. Is she all right?"

"All right enough to berate me for not having a love life. Now what is this thing that I apparently haven't heard of yet?"

"It's Ace."

"What about him?"

"Turns out he's criminally insane," Norma said.

Marco dropped his bag and didn't even care. "…Say _what_?"

"I know! And he seemed like such a well-meaning kid, too. He was nice and so very polite every time I talked to him. Bleedin' shame. Turns out his name wasn't Portgas – it was Gol or something. He couldn't give his real name because his records showed his institutionalisation and all that, according to Boss Marshall. The guy all of a sudden attacked Joe, Auge, and Marshall. If you look on Auge's face, you'll see a great big red bar on his forehead where Ace beaned him with a wooden chair. I'm a little impressed, actually," Norma said.

"And Marshall told you all of this?" Marco asked, voice deadly quiet.

Norma picked up on it. "…Yeah. Called a staff meeting to explain what happened to Ace."

"Where is Ace now?"

"Room 4103B, far as I can recall."

"_The fourth basement?_ Is Marshall out of his goddamn mi-" Marco stopped. "Never mind. I'll ask him myself."

"Marco! Marco, calm the fuck down! Can you at least wait to talk to him after you've calmed down a little?" Norma begged, taking hold of Marco's arm as he attempted to pass her.

Marco simply looked Norma in the eye and made his rage known. She let go wordlessly.

He backtracked to the reception desk and vaulted over it. He stalked up to the Manager's office, ignoring the shocked looks of the receptionists. Auge, situated at a desk just outside of the Manager's office, rose, presumably in an attempt to stop him. Out of the corner of his eye, Marco could see the massive red welt across his face from Ace's alleged attack and felt absurdly proud of whoever actually delivered the blow.

Marco slammed his fist into the door.

"MARSHALL, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE? I LEAVE FOR TWO DAYS AND THIS IS WHAT- Oh, you're here. Good." Marco smiled coolly as Marshall opened the door not a moment too soon. "We're going to have a nice little chat about institutionalising employees at random."

The manager pulled Marco into the office and closed the door behind them. "It wasn't at random, Marco. He's clinically insane."

"He's as insane as I am and you know it."

Marshall fixed Marco with a pointed stare. "Then maybe you should be down in the fourth basement with him. Watch what you say, Marco. The boy attacked three of us. We're lucky Auge doesn't have severe brain damage. He's a danger to himself and others."

"He was nothing but sweet and logical every goddamn time I talked to him! What the hell did you do to piss him off?" Marco demanded.

"Nothing!"

"Bullshit! There has to be something!"

"Marco, crazy people don't need reasons to do crazy things. That's why we have sanatoriums. If you expect his actions to make sense, then you clearly haven't been working here long enough to have a good idea of what 'crazy' even means! Now, if you've finished trying to get yourself fired, maybe you might attempt to do your fucking job!" Marshall hissed.

"…Fine." Marco left, slamming the door behind him as loudly as he could manage.

It wasn't over. It was far from over. Still, he knew that the threat on his job wasn't an empty one. The thing was, if Marco were fired, Ace was fucked. Marco was far more useful inside the institution than he would be outside of it, and that meant that for now, he was going to have to pretend to knuckle under.

He damn near flew down the stairs to the second basement, taking the steps two and three at a time, seeking out Luffy right away. He pounded on the door.

The little window opened. "You're here about Ace," Luffy said. He already knew. Of course he already knew.

"What happened?" Marco demanded. "I know they're not telling me everything."

Marco had never seen Luffy look so miserable. "…It's my fault. Ace was trying to get me out of here. He said I wasn't crazy. He said he might be able to get me home. I didn't know that they were going to… They hurt him, Marco. I don't know what they did, or exactly why. But I'm pissed. Let me out of here, please. Ace shouldn't have gotten hurt."

"They… they hurt him? What do you mean, 'they hurt him'?" Marco asked, reeling a little.

"When they carried him down the stairs, he was out cold. Bruises all over his arms. I think there were some cuts, too. His arm was bleeding. I tried to ask what happened…" Luffy's face took a downright unpleasant turn to it, "…but he yelled at me to shut up. He's kind of an asshole."

"I'll second that," Marco said. "Don't worry. I've got this under control, or at least I'm going to try. I can promise you that."

"Thank you, Marco. You're a good guy," Luffy said, cracking a smile.

Marco smiled back, though it was a slightly unsettling smile in that it did not reach his eyes. He turned and descended the last two levels. Room 4103B was all the way down the hallway. He trotted to reach the room a little quicker.

"Ace," he called through the door, "are you there?" A small moan answered.

As the second-highest security officer after Norton, Marco had keys to the fourth basement's rooms. He fumbled with the key ring until he found the right one. The door swung slowly open.

Ace was lying on a bed, strapped there. Marco had to work hard to keep himself composed instead of exploding in anger and ripping the restraints clear off.

"Hey, Ace. Are you okay? What happened while I was gone?" he asked, trying to keep his voice low.

"Mmm… Mar… co?" Ace mumbled. He looked half asleep, or drugged. It was probably the latter. Marco's eyes darted to a clipboard in the corner of the room that held logs as to when the last dose of sedative had been administered. Checking his watch, it read less than an hour ago. Ace was still out of it. "Marco, I… I didn't do… an… y… thing… wrong. Not caraaazeeee… Please believe me…"

"I believe you, man. It was Marshall, wasn't it?"

Ace nodded faintly. "Mm-hm. Luffy, too."

Marco frowned. "Luffy's not crazy, either?"

"…Uh-uh. Nutty… fucker… but not… certifi…able." Marco smiled slightly at hearing his own terminology out of Ace. "Check… files. Fa… father. Mmh-mgh…" Ace's eyes rolled back in his head and to all appearances, he passed out.

Marco brushed the hair away from Ace's sweat-slicked forehead and rose slowly. He left the room, teeth clenched, and had to force himself to lock the door behind him.

He trudged up the stairs with the firm conviction of someone about to fucking murder somebody. When he got to the first basement, he ran into Norma. It seemed she had been looking for him. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her close enough to whisper in her ear.

"Get your brother. We're talking to Newgate."

Her eyes widened. "Marco, we swore we would never-"

"Get your brother. _Now_."

"What, we're leaving now?" she asked.

"No. Soon as we get off work. Just do it."

She was silent for a few moments. "…What did Ace say that made you think of talking to Newgate?"

"I'll explain later. For now… just know that we don't have many options left."

* * *

><p>"Wow," Usopp muttered, sitting back in his chair. "Just… wow."<p>

"I concur," said Robin.

"Is that good wow or a bad wow?" Nami asked. "I mean, I thought his plan was pretty good, but…"

Usopp was shaking his head. "No. This plan isn't 'good'. It's fucking genius. How old did you say this guy was again?"

"Eh. He looked twenty-one, twenty-two-ish or something. Is it really all that great?"

"Uh – _yeah_! Of _course_ it's all that great! Look. Robin, can you get out the maps for a second?"

"Of course, dear." She quickly produced them from her purse and laid them flat on the table.

"You see where he's suggesting we plant the stuff? Here, here, here, and… here." Usopp laid one of the M&M he'd been eating on each location. "And a couple over here… and some more over here… There." There were M&Ms all over the maps, several for each floor.

"I still don't get it."

"It's a pattern!"

Nami sighed. "It looks like a bunch of goddamn M&Ms to me and that's it."

"True!" Usopp said. "But what happens when you lay all the maps overtop each other?"

Nami's eyes quickly made the calculations. Her eyes widened. "Oh my God. That's…"

"Exactly."

"So that's why he-"

"Exactly!"

"And then when they're doing that-"

"Yeah! You've got it!"

Nami looked up, her eyes sparkling. "Okay. This is fucking brilliant. Before, I thought that he was just making shit up and trying to sound smart. This is just… ridiculous. In the good way."

"I'm not following this at all," Zoro said, chugging a beer from the couch.

"Too stupid to get it?" Sanji jibbed.

"You don't get it either, you dumb shit!"

"Will both of you quit it? We've got prisoners of political war to rescue, here!" Nami said.

Robin frowned. "Ace's plan is relatively solid. It is as thorough a plan as we are going to get at this stage of information gathering, given of course that he knows the security system extremely well. Still, he asks that particular… resources… be employed. Resources that we, I should mention, do not have. How shall we go about obtaining those?"

"Would Mister Brook have them?" Chopper suggested.

Usopp and Nami shook their heads in unison. "Nah," Nami said. "The guy's eighty-something, remember? Why would he have stuff like that lying around the house?"

"Oh…" Chopper said. "Okay."

Franky cleared his throat. All eyes turned to him. "Actually, I might know a guy."

Sanji just stared, his single visible eyebrow communicating his skepticism clearly. "…You 'know a guy'? A guy who's gonna have this kind of shit on hand?"

"Yeah. Dunno if he'd be willing to part with it, but it can't hurt to ask," Franky said.

"Well, where can we find him?" Nami asked.

Franky sighed. "Just leave that part to me."

"What is his name, at the very least?" Robin asked.

"…He goes by 'The Good Mister Newgate'."

Silence reigned as four regular citizens who were confused and two ex-convicts who understood perfectly took it in.

* * *

><p>(AN): I mention maybe getting in a triple update, and the first thing my brain does is suggest that I watch Avatar: the Last Airbender and level up all of my Pokemon. What the fuck, brain? What the fuck? Still going to try for it.

You can probably see where this is going to a certain extent. I don't even _need_ to tell you what's going to happen for next chapter, do I?


	9. Like Make the World Brand New

**Chapter 9**

"I still think this is fuckin' insane," Zoro muttered from the corner of his mouth, slouched against the car seat. Nami elbowed him.

"First off, insensitivity much? Second off, this is the only shot we've got at getting Luffy and apparently Ace out of that place, according to Sis and Franky. Where the hell do _you_ suggest we get our supplies from?" she hissed.

"Not an international crime boss; that's for damn sure."

"He's not a crime boss, exactly," Franky said. "Er, well, he kinda is. He's just an old dude who likes to take care of his own."

"Even if it means destroying large federally-owned property and stealing from the rich to give to the poor," Robin said.

"So a modern-day old fart version of Robin Hood? Yeah, _that_ inspires confidence(!)" Sanji said.

"Nami, I'm kind of scared," Chopper muttered, pulling his hat down over his ears.

"Don't worry, Chopper," Robin said, smiling slightly. "Edward Newgate is a very kind man to those who show him and his friends no disrespect. We are merely asking to use his resources, and we do not intend to show any disrespect, so we have no reason to fear for our well-being."

"You say that, but Sanji's gonna say something offensive, I just know it. Probably Zoro, too," Chopper muttered. Robin had a hard time trying to prove him wrong.

"We're almost there," Franky called to the rest of the occupants of the van. Seven people were difficult to cram into a van that was meant to hold about six-and-a-half people. Luckily, Chopper was tiny enough that he fit into the middle seat in the back between Robin and Usopp. Nami and Zoro took the middle seats (Zoro was the only one who refused to wear a seat belt) and Sanji had called shotgun from the get-go.

Franky pulled into a crumbling parking lot by an old HQ warehouse that had gone out of business years ago.

"Oh, hey! I remember this place!" Nami said. "My mum used to take me out here to learn how to drive, 'cause there were no cars around to get in the way! And around Christmas, the Salvation Army uses the warehouse to hold all their boxes and gifts and shit for the poor people… I used to volunteer." She smiled, clearly remembering happier times. "I used to get so pissed when the other people who were volunteering turned out to be stupid and inefficient. I had to go back behind them half the time and fix whatever they fucked up." The others exchanged glances.

"Well," said Franky, "it ain't no Salvation Army in there this time." He pulled around back and parked by the loading bays. "Out the car, everybody!"

They clambered out, some more gracefully than others (Chopper damn near had his face collide with the pavement, bless his little heart). Franky trotted up to the massive corrugated steel doors and knocked. "OYAJI! YA IN THERE?" he bellowed.

The door slowly retracted upwards as someone behind worked the pulley.

"That you, Franky?" A face popped out from under the rapidly rising door.

"Thatch! You sneaky old bastard! What are you doing in this state? Aren't there a good three warrants for your arrest here?"

"Nah, only the two. Nothing I can't handle. It's good to see you!" They clapped each other on the back and traded jokes about Thatch's facial hair and how it didn't seem to 'match the drapes'. Their behaviour was remarkably similar and one might almost swear they were related, if it weren't for the part where, aside from the basic shape of the hair, they looked nothing alike.

"Hey, man – I'm sorry you guys had to come all the way out here for us. We really appreciate it," Franky said.

"Oh, we're not here just for you, so there's no need for your thanks. Truth be told, we've had a bunch of other meetings lined up today. Good thing you're not early."

No-one chose to ask why it was a good thing they weren't early. Chopper just looked all the more terrified.

"Hey, Oyaji!" called Thatch. "Guess who?"

"Is that Franky?" asked a truly monstrously tall man, sitting on a crate by the back of the warehouse, drinking what appeared to be high-quality booze and surrounded by rough-looking men and very pretty-looking girls. It had to be Edward Newgate himself. "Now, what would he be doing here and why would he drag some children still in their diapers, I wonder?"

"Is he talkin' 'bout us?" Zoro asked Nami, voice full of not-so-hidden venom.

"Just let it go for now. It's for Luffy." Zoro huffed, but shut up.

"Oyaji, I know it's been forever since we've talking properly and all, and I know it would probably be better to just sit down and catch up or something, but I've got a bit of serious problem and we need some stuff that, far as I know, you're the only one with access to. Any chance we could get at your suppliers? We'd pay you, of course," Franky said.

"What kind of 'stuff' do you need, and why do you need it? If it's something only I have, then it can't be anything legal," Newgate observed.

"Ehehe… yeah. About that. Here's what we need." Franky handed over the list. Tall as Franky was, Newgate still had to bend a little to take the piece of paper.

As he read over the list, Newgate began chortling deep in his throat. "What the hell kind of operation are you planning that you need _this_? It promises to be interesting if you're actually planning on using half of what's here."

Franky grinned slightly. It wasn't a 'no' yet. "One of our friends and then a friend of his got chucked into a loony bin for political reasons and we're of a mind to get both of 'em back."

Newgate paused, then looked up and fixed the group with a piercing stare.

Nami froze and began to mentally panic. What had they done wrong? If he rejected them now, they were screwed. If he took offense, they were screwed. Were they even going to get a chance to fix what they had done wrong, whatever it was?

"…Which 'loony bin' might this be?"

"Er…" Franky fumbled with the name. "…Greenburgh State Psychiatric Hospital."

"I knew it," Newgate muttered. "It would seem you lucky dogs are the second people today to ask me for assistance with that particular institution. I'm assuming you're asking about the same two people, as well."

"Wait…" Nami said. "If we were the second group… who was the first?"

"That would be me," said a deep voice from off to Newgate's left. Marco stepped out, Norm and Norma slightly behind him and looking uncomfortable. "I'm a friend of Ace's. You would be friends of Luffy's, then?"

"You're Ace's friend?" Zoro asked, finally content to speak up with someone who did _not_ control the fate of what he considered his only friend. "Then why the hell did you let what happened to him happen?"

Marco bristled. "I wasn't there. From what I saw on the security footage, you're the guy Ace talked to who got him into all this, aren't you? Well, guess what, prick? I'm the guy whose night shift Ace took for two nights, and if I'd been there, I'd have chucked your sorry ass clean out onto the streets and called the cops, and Ace would be just fine right now."

"Well, I was pretty interested in setting my friend free at the time. I'm pretty sure you can fucking relate, seeing as how a security guard somehow started consorting with what's generally viewed as the other side of the law."

"Don't you get started with me!" Marco snapped.

"Both of you, shut the hell up," Newgate ordered. "My old ears ache enough without listening to idiots try to kill what few remaining neural connections they have functioning. Both of you want the same thing. Both of you came to me to get it. Judging by the whole bit where you lot –" he nodded to Franky and the group "- need various fancy instruments of nefariousness to achieve something or other, I think it's safe to guess that you have a plan. Marco, as it stands, we do not. What harm is there in at least hearing out what they have planned, hm?"

"It is not our plan, sir," Robin said, stepping forward. "It is Ace's. The night he was locked away, he related his views to two of our own, and explained a device by which both he and Luffy could hypothetically be freed. We will happily explain the details, should you require it of us."

Marco looked intrigued now. "He came up with a plan on his own?"

"Yes."

"…How good is it?"

Robin simply smiled. "Very good, sir. Ace has a flair for covert action, it would seem."

Marco grinned. "Then let's hear it."

* * *

><p>Ace barely registered the change in environment when he was carted out of his room in a wheelchair. His bloodstream was too full of sedatives and his brain wasn't functioning properly for him to do much but blithely wonder how they were going to get anywhere in a wheelchair if there was no elevator.<p>

He tried to point this out to whoever was wheeling him around, but it came out mixed-up mumbled gibberish, much to his irritation. To a drunkard, it might have made sense, but to a normal person, no such luck.

…Oh. They were going to carry him up the stairs. That worked, too. He was too drugged up to care about the indignity of it all. He was carried to the first basement into the infirmary.

The doctor, a severe-looking man in his sixties, waved a hand in front of Ace's eyes to no avail.

"He's really out of it. How much did you give him?"

"175 milligrams."

"The hell? You should only be giving him that much for pre-op, and I certainly don't plan on cutting him open. And that's each injection?"

"Well, yeah."

"How many total?"

"Three times; one every three minutes for nine minutes."

"Shit! Well, if you Manager Marshall wants to pump the poor kid full of sedatives, that's his business, but when he borders on making him a damn vegetable, I have to voice my concerns. Cut the dosage to 100 mg for three injections, if that." The doctor flashed a torch into Ace's eyes to check his pupils, then took his pulse, writing down what he found. He rolled up Ace's sleeve and wrapped the band around his bicep to take his blood pressure and wrote the result for that down, as well.

"All right then, Mister Ace. Can you hear me? Blink if you hear me."

Ace blinked slowly.

"Good. At least you can understand me. Can you speak?"

Ace let out a low murmur that was intended to be speech.

"I'll take that as a no. I'm sorry they used so much pentobarbital on you. I really don't know what the hell they think they're doing. I'm going to try and steadily lower what they give you, all right? That ought to make it easier to move and speak." The doctor sighed and scratched the back of his head. "I don't know what the hell has gotten into management these days. I'm going to see if I can't get you transferred to a psychiatric hospital that isn't full of incompetent nimrods."

"Nnnnno…" Ace said.

"Hm?"

"No… don't…" Ace whispered.

The doctor looked Ace in the eyes as best he could. "…If you say so. I hope it's you talking and not the drugs. I'll check on you again in a week." He went out in the hall and fetched the orderly to carry Ace back down to his padded prison.

If only they could hear the endless curses rampaging on the inside of Ace's head.

* * *

><p>(AN): AWW YEAH. WHAT NOW, LIFE? TRIPLE UPDAAAAAAAATE.

Anyway, I'm getting a whole shit-ton of fillings tomorrow… and it's my parents' anniversary. They're going to be all mushy the whole day; I just know it, and I'm gonna be drugged out of my mind. Ace, my man, I completely sympathise.


	10. And Take the Time For You

OH GAWD MY FACE MY BEAUTIFUL(!) FACE WHERE DID IT GO I CAN'T FEEL IT – oh, there it is. Also, just for reference, the noise of a dentist's drill makes will always concern the living shit out of me. I'm just putting that out there.

**Chapter 10**

After everything was explained, it was decided that Marco should be the one to plant the items Ace requested in their strategic locations. He had keys to the entirety of the building (although in light of how pissy he had been to Marshall's face, his universal keys were confiscated whenever he left the building, which ruled out a simpler escape. It was one of those things for which he was going to curse himself for the rest of his life), so he could get to all the locations. Slight modifications were made to Ace's plan to get it to work. Since Norton manned the security cameras and would see what Marco was doing, they had decided to take him out of action. Some heavy laxatives in his lunch would take care of that problem. Norm or Norma would take up his seat in the camera room, taking care to isolate and dispose of the incriminating recordings as soon as Marco was finished. That had actually been Usopp's idea, and the young man was bursting with pride that they had taken his suggestion to heart.

Marco trained his eyes on the door to the camera room. He had already put the laxatives in Norton's morning coffee. Now, it was just a waiting game.

He checked his watch. How long did it take the stupid things to kick in?

Oh! There he was. The rotund man charged out of the camera room straight for the restroom. It was the fastest Marco had ever seen his (not really) superior move.

"Yo, Norm? Can you watch his spot for 'im? I don't think old Nort's feeling quite up to snuff," Marco called, sounding nonchalant.

"Yeah, sure. Whatever."

Nobody from reception so much as looked up. Nice. Now it was time to indulge in a little… espionage.

* * *

><p>Luffy knew that Marco and the others were going to take care of Ace. He trusted them, and that was that. He even trusted Marco (though not as much as Zoro or Nami). They weren't going to let anything happen to him. Besides, Ace was strong enough to handle himself, for the most part. There was no way he was dead. Luffy convinced himself that he had been overreacting. He was still a little worried, but, for all his largely nonsensical ways, Luffy had a very logical way of looking at things. Fact One: Ace is alive and probably at least somewhat well. Fact Two: no-one is going to kill him or wants to kill him. Fact Three: both Zoro <em>and<em> Marco are working on helping him get the hell out of here. Fact Four: There's nothing you can do as long as you're in here. Conclusion: Sit on your ass until there's something you can do. When there is, you do it. End of story. There is no point in worrying when there is nothing to be done. It is just a waste of time and energy.

There was that tiny niggling sense of doubt in the back of Luffy's mind, but he did his damnedest to ignore it. It had no place being there and he should just pretend like it didn't exist.

Nurse Hannah was leading him and some others up the stairs to the first basement. He liked her. She was nice and soft-spoken, but she wasn't a wimp like a lot of other soft-spoken people.

"Where are we going?" he asked, unsure if he was allowed to ask questions this time.

"Just your art class, Mister Luffy. Does a little art therapy sound good? We'll let you finger paint!" she said.

Finger painting was good. Finger painting was fun. The paint felt wonderful on his fingers, if a little weird. He would have to remember to keep at least one finger paint-free in case he needed to scratch something. Last time he'd forgotten and went around the whole day with big green marks where he'd scratched his ass. _That_ was gonna be a story to tell the kids one day.

Luffy wasn't an artist by any stretch of the imagination. Even his stick-figures always ended up lopsided and ridiculous-looking. He didn't much care. Finger painting was fun no matter how old or young you were, and Luffy just couldn't understand why the art teachers had forbidden it once you entered elementary school. It was a crying shame.

"Here we are, everyone!" Hannah said. She opened the door to the art room and began leading people to their assigned spots – those who couldn't remember where their spots were, at least. Luffy knew his was right by the little tiny window at the top of the room. The first basement was only mostly underground, which was to say that it was also partially aboveground. What came in through the little window at the top was the most sunlight he was going to see for a very long time, and he soaked in it.

"Okay, everyone," Hannah said, walking to the front of the room and clapping her hands to get attention. "We're going to trying painting our feelings today. Do whatever you need to do to help you relax. Close your eyes, or breathe reeeeeeaaaaaally deep – whatever helps. Just think about how you're feeling and paint whatever comes to mind."

Painting with your eyes closed? That sounded _awesome_. After all, Luffy's drawings couldn't get any worse. Perhaps closing his eyes might be an improvement.

But that whole 'painting your feelings' crap… That had to be the worst prompt ever. How the hell did one paints one's feelings? It sounded ridiculous. It _was_ ridiculous. Maybe instead of feelings, Luffy would paint thoughts. It seemed easier. Thoughts revolved around something that was part reality and part invented, but it was always clear and distinct. He thought constantly about whatever happened to Ace.

It seemed that Luffy had found something to paint.

He arranged the little tubs of paint in order of the rainbow, so he would remember which was which even without the use of sight. He closed his eyes and began feeling around the edges of the giant piece of cardboard stock they had given him to get a good feel for its size. He breathed in deeply and turned his attention to that tightly-knit ball of worry and doubt in the back of his mind. His hands dipped into the paint and started moving.

He smeared together whites, blues, and greens. There were greys everywhere, too. He just knew. And then he had to mix together a lot of white, some yellow, red, and just a hint of green. If there was a picture he was trying to make, he couldn't see it. He could just see the colours in his head and knew where they went. He smiled a little. This _was_ easier with his eyes closed. The finished result didn't have to look like anything, he knew. It was just a stupid art class, and everybody knew not to take those seriously. He felt his right ring finger make a sharp line with his nail. He had no idea what he was outlining, but it didn't much matter.

This was how one painted one's feelings.

The paint was almost cold and strangely squishy all over Luffy's fingers. He knew Nami would back away with disgust written all over her face if she could see him now. But no. He couldn't allow himself to be distracted. He fell into some kind of rhythm and lost all sense of the real world. It was just him, paint, and paper. And Ace. He couldn't forget Ace.

Two hours later, Luffy felt his consciousness stirring. Every time he had finished a line or a smear of paint somewhere, the next step had just popped into his head. Now, there was nothing? Did that mean he was done? It kind of felt like it. If he opened his eyes now, was the light going to blind him?

He backed away from the easel, turning his head away from the window before he cracked an eyelid.

Hannah was standing behind him, but to his shock, she was the only one. There was no-one else is the room, although finished paintings were still on their easels. How long ago had everyone else finished and gone back to their rooms?

"Hannah? You okay, there?" he asked, waving a hand encrusted both with dried and wet paint.

She was staring at his painting. When he spoke, she seemed to shake herself out of it. "Of course! I'm fine! It's just… I…" she coughed "…Your painting is very good, Mister Luffy."

Oh, that's right! He hadn't looked yet! Luffy turned to see what he'd been constructing for the past two hours and stopped dead. ...Woah.

It looked real. Well, not real. It looked like somebody had painted a photograph with very heavy, thick brush-strokes, but done so rather accurately. It was a room, covered wall-to-wall with light seafoam-coloured padding. The lighting was harsh, and a prone figure was strapped to what looked like a bed in a corner. It was Ace. The features were a little indistinct, but Luffy just knew that it was Ace.

"Maybe I should paint with my eyes closed more often," Luffy said. "Got a sink?"

Hannah pointed him in the right direction, smiling weakly. "Can you get yourself back to your room all right, do you think?" she asked.

"Sure!"

"Er, actually…" she stuck her head out of the door. "Hey, Leena? Can you take Mister Luffy back to his room, please?"

"Yeah. 2016A, right?" asked the other nurse.

"Yes."

"All right, come on, honey. You clean yet?" The two left and Hannah was alone in the room with eleven normal paintings and one extraordinary one. She picked up the wall telephone and hit the speed-dial for the Manager's Office.

"Sir? I need to speak with you in the art room. I think we have a Class A on our hands. Class B at the very least. …Okay, thank you, sir. Right away, sir."

* * *

><p>Marco popped his head into the security room. "I've got every point set up," he said.<p>

"Good. I've already isolated the footage. I just hit 'delete' and we're golden," Norm said.

"Then do it!"

"Okay." He dramatically smashed the backspace button on the keyboard. "Voilà. Be amazed."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm very impressed. Now can we get back to the main issue here?"

"There's another issue?"

"Yeah. Do we need to let Ace know how much we've got set up?" Marco asked. "I mean, he is kind of a crucial player and all that."

Norm bit a thumb. "I've got an idea."

"What?"

"Write him a note and kick it under the door. Leave instructions for him to respond with knocks on the door from the inside or something. It won't look suspicious on camera because the security cameras don't record sound. They won't catch whatever reply Ace gives, so long as it isn't visible."

Marco grinned. "Good going. I knew your sister didn't get all the smart genes."

"Hey, what the hell is that supposed to mean? Do people really think that about us?"

"Err…" Marco looked everywhere but Norm's face and promptly left the room.

He grabbed a piece of paper from the little notepad that he kept in a pocket. He rarely needed it, but occasionally the staff would put together notes for getting take-out for lunch, and Marco usually supplied the paper on which everyone wrote down their orders. He began scribbling down his note to Ace.

_Hey, Ace. Hope you're not too loopy to read this. Everything's where it belongs and we've got the clips. Shall we get this party started? If so, when? Smack the door for how many days from now it's okay to start. If you want us to get shit started at our own discretion, start whistling something._

_Marco_

It would suffice.

He trotted down to the fourth basement. God, his knees were killing him after trekking up and down those goddamn stairs all day. Normally, he would pick a floor to hang out on for most of the day. He hadn't done this much cardio in a long, long time.

There was Ace's door. 4103B. He unobtrusively dropped the piece of paper on the ground and quickly kicked it under the door. He slowed his pace and waited for the response.

He grinned when he heard Ace cheerily whistling the Colonel Bogey March, also known as "Hitler Has Only Got One Ball".

* * *

><p>(AN): _Blackbeard has only got one ball~._

_Auge has two but they are small._

_Himmler~ is very sim'lar~_

_And poor Joe-Balls has no balls at all~._

CONSPIRACY THEORIES INSIDE OF CONSPIRACY THEORIES. IT'S LIKE CONSPIRI-CEPTION. But yeah. I will explain everything in due time. Next chapter, I'm going to get to work on executing Ace's plan at long fucking last. As a result, it might end up being lots longer. We'll see.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day, everyone. Now that I can feel my face, I'm feeling a little more upbeat than I was when I started writing this chapter. Unfortunately, I head back to school either tomorrow or the day after. Ffffffffffuck. I am not pleased. At least I come home for the summer around the 20th of May. I'll do what I can to keep updating regularly, but seriously… Don't come to expect it.


	11. Just Got Lost & Slept Right Through Dawn

It's the weirdest damn thing, but the submission for this chapter is all wonky. The notification email won't come, and for some reason, the hit counter stays at zero, even though there's a review for it already (thank you so much, love!), so I KNOW that someone HAS in fact seen it. What the hell, ffnet, what the hell? I wonder if it's just having a difficult time with notification emails today or something.

**Chapter 11**

Also known as

**It's About Fucking Time You Got Around to Being Badass**

The first fire began that very afternoon. It started on the second basement, towards the northern side.

Marco had been able to fill in the bits that Ace had left blank beautifully. It wasn't exactly simple, but at least its execution was. Earlier, he had planted small lighters (the cheap kind you could pick up in any Seven-Eleven) that had been gutted and hooked up to remote detonation devices. Of course, he could only do this because earlier, he had laced Norton's bagged lunch with a particular drug (provided by Chopper, of all people) that would produce symptoms reminiscent of food poisoning. One of the Golightly twins would man the security room and unobtrusively cut in footage they had recorded previously of Norm, decked out in thick clothes that hid his shape and identity, starting a fire in the proper locations. When the footage reached the point of starting the fire, whoever was in the security room would instantly relay it to Marco, who would hit the button so as to match up to the time of the point of ignition with the time recorded on the security footage. And, since Marco, Norm, and Norma would all be far removed from the point of origin of the fire in view of others, it gave a perfect alibi. It would look like someone had strolled into the sanatorium and lit a fire, and then left.

When the fire alarms went off, Marco had to work hard to stop a smile. He was on the ground floor, so he raced to the security room and acted like he had no idea what just happened.

"Where is it?" he yelled as he threw the door open. Manager Marshall had come out of his office and his eyes went straight to his senior security officer.

Norma came out of the security booth. "Second basement, sir! North wing! Somebody set a goddamn fire!" The woman could have won an Oscar. She and Marco both rocketed for the stairs, Norma pausing to grab a fire extinguisher. Marshall waddled after them, but held back a bit. If his guards got burnt to a crisp, that was their business. _He_ was of a mind to run.

Norma put out the fire with no trouble at all. After all, the plan didn't involve bringing harm to the other patients in the mental hospital.

"What happened?" Marshall demanded, now that the danger was over.

"You can check the security footage, sir. Somebody in a black hoodie came through this hall and just…" She waved a hand behind her at the charred section of floor. "It's outright arson, sir. The Fire Department should be here soon, so we should get them to take a look."

"Arson?" Marshall asked.

"Then there's gotta be a sign the culprit was here. Norma, keep an eye on the scene of the crime and don't let anyone touch anything," Marco said. He would have winked, but Norma knew what to do.

"…Understood. And catch the bastard who's setting fire to my building!" Marshall snapped. He turned and left. As soon as he was out of sight, Marco walked up to Norma and gestured, pretending to be talking to her. His height and positioning blocked Norma from the screen of the security camera. She bent down and swiped the charred remains of the lighter and detonation device.

"Dumpster?" she asked.

"Dumpster. Hand it to me; I'll chuck it. If they catch me out there, I can just say I'm checking the perimeter," Marco said. She passed the lighter to him and he put both hands in his pockets, so as not to be suspicious on camera. He left and Norma resumed guarding the 'evidence'.

When the Fire Department came, they confirmed arson caused by a lighter. In lieu of the actual lighter, they also proclaimed the existence of the arsonist's physical presence at the scene of the crime. Their alibis were now perfected. An investigator from the Arson department of the police force was assigned to them. Marshall appeared to be getting slightly nervous about the idea of law enforcement keeping a heavy presence in the sanatorium, and with good reason. Marco just liked to watch him squirm, personally.

Over the next week, ten more fires were set off for a total of eleven. There were still seven to go, according to Ace's plans. Marshall was shitting a brick because they still hadn't found the 'arsonist'. Every fire was put out quickly and quietly, but still, no-one had seen anyone in a black hoodie sneaking in or out.

Seeing how stressed the Manager was getting, Marco felt it was time to slip in the kicker.

"Sir, I don't think we have the necessary numbers to deal with a problem like this. It's just me, the twins, and Joe right now. We need more security guards, even if it's only temporary. Will you hire a few more – just until we catch the bastard? Then you can let them all go and not have to worry about the long-term expenses."

Marshall thought about it. Then he smirked. "You're right. I _can_ just ditch all of them once they've served their purpose, can't I?"

"Er… not in so many words, but something like that. I'm going to need maybe two people on each floor at least, and then someone else in the security room, so… I think we'll need at least seven more people."

"We'll see," Marshall said. "Just keep my damn building from getting set on fire. _Again_. You're damn lucky we haven't all been burnt black and crispy by now."

Robin had taken the liberties of hacking the computer in Marshall's office. The site containing the job posting was isolated to make it accessible only from within the sanatorium's servers. Upon gaining access to those servers, the prospective applicants were carefully chosen from among Zoro's and Whitebeard's people.

Zoro had been rankled at the idea of working with a criminal, especially one on the FBI's Most Wanted List (and he only knew who was on the list because there was always that one idiot guy in a squad of new recruits who thought himself Superman mixed with James Bond and taped pictures of the Most Wanted list to the wall by his bed – not that Zoro had ever been one of those people. Heavens, no. Zoro could not possibly give fewer shits). But then, because of his criminal status and personal relationship with Luffy that was essentially public knowledge, he had been ordered to stay back, and that rankled him even more. Ah, well. Such was life.

While Zoro would have been an obvious choice, there were others who were perhaps better suited to the task at hand. Usopp and Nami would participate from Luffy's team, as it were. Sanji was considered briefly before they realised that his short temper (and attention span) would probably not go over well. It would also be difficult to explain why a culinary student suddenly wanted a job as a lowly security guard. It would have been wonderful to work in Robin, but again, they ran into the issue of her status as a fugitive with noticeable ties to Luffy. Thatch (with an edited hairdo and a doctored résumé so his arrest warrants wouldn't pop up) and some others from Newgate's team would fill the remaining five spots. The four besides Thatch were introduced as Haruta, Namur, Nicholas, and Holli. Haruta was tiny and androgynous, but they were assured… he? She? It? …could fight well and had gifts for working undetected. Namur looked impressive and strong, and seemed to be a man of few words. He looked the part of the buff security guard all over. Nicholas, or Nick, was on the skinny side, but at least he was muscled. He seemed appallingly nice and overly chatty, though. Holli looked and acted somewhat delicate until you realised with a glance downward that she could probably choke a grown man to death with just her legs. Other 'applicants' were chosen, such as Chopper, Franky, and even Luffy's friend Brook, along with some other friends of Newgate's. These applications were mixed in solely so that they would be rejected – Chopper and Brook because of the inappropriateness of their ages to the job, and Franky and Newgate's men because of their criminal records. They were there only to make it slightly less suspicious that there were only seven 'good' applicants – the exact number of guards Marco had requested.

Thankfully, Marshall didn't seem to notice anything strange. He picked exactly the people they had wanted him to pick, especially after the twelfth fire was lit and there were still no leads.

"Everyone, this is our situation," Marco said to the congregation in the security locker room, Marshall in the background to monitor the meeting. "Thus far, twelve fires have been lit in our facility on the second, third, and fourth basements. According to the Fire Department and the Police Department, these fires are lit with a lighter – probably a cheap one, at that. We know from our security footage that the perpetrator is between five-foot-eight and five-foot-ten. This guy – or girl – enters unseen in a black unmarked hoodie, and then just fucking vanishes into midair. We need to find out how he does it and nail his ass to the wall. Understood?" There were nods all around. Since Marshall was in the back, he couldn't see the ironic smiles on the faces of some of his new employees. Marco smacked a hand against the three diagrams taped to the wall behind him. "These show where every last fire has been over the last week and a half. They are marked for your convenience in order of which happened first, second, third, and so on. Now, our culprit seems to just hit spots completely at random-"

Usopp raised a hand. "Er, sir?"

"What?"

"Are you sure there isn't a pattern?"

"What do you mean, 'a pattern'? The locations bounce all over the damn place," Marco said. Thank goodness they had rehearsed their lines ahead of time. Usopp had been the best at making it sound natural, so the lines went to him. Well, he _had_ boasted of being a pathological liar.

"Well, I mean, look at it. The first, second, third… all the way up to the seventh… They all seem to go in a line," Usopp said. Marshall sat up in the back.

"Show us," Marco said.

Usopp got up. "Well, the fires might be on different floors, but the horizontal positioning seems to be the most important part. So, if you layer all the maps on top of each other and have them marked according to where each fire has been… Do you have transparencies of these?"

"Sure. Here's a marker."

After some scribbling, the boy held each up in turn. They matched their counterparts on the wall. "And now one on top of the other!" He pushed them together in a neat stack.

Marshall's eyes widened. "They're letters!" he cried.

"Yeah! An S and an O. The most recent fire seems to correspond with the beginning of another S. I think he's lighting an SOS across the building," Usopp said.

"And if we know what he's spelling out…" Marco said, beginning to smile.

"Then we can catch him before he strikes again," Marshall said. He began cackling like a madman. "Stake out the position of his next attack! All three floors! Call me when you find the little shit!" He left, guffawing from deep in his throat.

"Well done, Usopp," Marco said.

"No problem. I once was nominated for best supporting actor in an indie film a year or two back."

It actually took Marco a second to figure out he was lying.

* * *

><p>As it turned out, Thatch was the only one among them who had taken an engineering course. Yes, he was technically a cook, but he had tried it for fun and ended up minoring in it in college. Before he dropped out, at any rate. As it so happened, the next part of the plan required someone with just that kind of knowledge. The other ten people were 'guarding' the areas where the next fire was supposed to be, and while they all had reasonable excuses for not patrolling the rest of the building, Thatch was supposed to be working on the massive water heater on the opposite side of the building, down in the fourth basement.<p>

The facility was old as balls. As such, there was an enormous water tank with all of the heated water instead of more modern plumbing that would keep the hot water from running out, as it was wont to do with just a tank. However, that fixture of the establishment was going to be Ace's and Luffy's saving grace.

Thatch wasn't sure why knowledge of engineering was necessary to do this. He just needed to make a big fucking hole in the bottom of the water heater so that all the water would drain out and flood the bottom floor. Was there a particular art to breaking things? He could understand why you wouldn't want someone to accidentally blow to whole place sky-high, but water heaters were pretty low-risk, all things considered.

He picked up a wrench and smashed it into the heater with all of his strength. There was a hell of a dent, but evidently not enough to break through the metal.

Lucky thing Thatch wasn't a Democrat. He pulled out a gun and shot the damn thing.

Boom.

"Shit, shit, shit!" Thatch cried as he began trying to climb what was left of the water tank. Okay, so he should have thought this through and kept the door open, even if he _did_ risk exposure that way. Now the damn room was flooding. Quickly. Really quickly.

"I liked these pants," muttered Thatch. He jumped off the tank and waded through the hot swirling waters, opening the door. Thank goodness it opened out. The water crashed through the hall, flooding the entire area with about a foot of water. It was going to keep rising, Thatch knew, because the plumbing was wired to add more water to the water heater whenever it wasn't quite full. Well, it was never going to _be_ full now. He wasn't sure how fast the water levels would rise, but for now, it achieved its purpose.

There were yells up and down the hall of the fourth basement, most of which involved nursery rhymes about drowning or hysterical yells of "Oh God, Oh God, we're all going to die". Ace saw the water begin the cover the floor of his room and knew it was time to move. His captors still didn't know that he had found a way out of his restraints, so he would have to be careful. He rolled up his pants and fished out the pen he'd been using to get free from the pocket. He just hoped there was some ink left in the stupid thing.

The chart detailing when his last dose of sedatives had been was hanging on the wall by the door. He inched his way over through the water, standing on the balls of his feet. He would prefer if as little of him got wet as possible – if they noticed that his feet were wet, he would have some awkward explaining to do. He checked the chart and mimicked the scribbling handwriting of one of the earlier signatories. He marked the time as ten minutes ago. Now there was nothing to do but wait for one of his guys to come through.

Thatch splashed through the hall as noisily as possible and ran up the stairs. He bolted for the ground floor and the Manager's Office, and like many before him, cursed the lack of elevator.

By the time he got there, he was out of breath and determined to get back in shape. He had meant to yell dramatically that the lower basement was flooding, but for now, wild, panicked gesticulation would work. "Water! Tank! Burst! Flooding!" he got out between pants. One of the secretaries understood and hauled ass to tell the Manager.

"What the hell do you _mean_ 'the fourth basement's flooding'?" screeched Marshall's voice. Thatch grinned. Mission accomplished.

Marshall burst out of his office. "Evacuate everyone on that floor! Remember to sedate the patients before moving them! Go! Go! Go! You!" He pointed to Thatch. "Grab the rest of the guards and keep eyes on the patients! If they make a suspicious move when you're evacuating them, or if they complain too much, knock 'em out. I don't care what you have to do, just shut them up."

"Sir? One question. Where are we evacuating them to? Where do we put 'em?" That question seemed to stump Marshall. "May I suggest the first basement? The rooms are mostly empty and I think they lock from the outside."

Marshall nodded. "Okay. You do that. Now!"

Going down the stairs was much easier than going up. "Marco's squad! Namur's squad! We've been ordered to evacuate the fourth basement to the empty rooms on the first basement! Express orders to haul ass!" he bellowed to the squads on the third and fourth basements.

"Gotcha!" Marco yelled.

"Understood!" Namur called.

Marco's squad got to work right away, and Namur's people were en route down the staircase. Marco waded over as quickly as he could. "We're still saving Ace 'til last, or nearly last, right?"

Thatch frowned. "I know, I know, but I think the super-ultra-mega-douchebagatron might be coming down here faster than we anticipated. He looked like he was about to pop a blood vessel when I saw him."

"You think we should speed it up?"

"Either that, or put Ace higher up on the list for evacuation."

Marco shook his head. "He'd never go for that. If somebody didn't get evacuated in time and got hurt because of him, he'd flip and you know it. The water's already two feet high and the beds are only three and a half feet off the ground. People are strapped to them. There's no way they can run away or even sit up. They'll drown unless we get them the hell out of here."

"You're right. Let's go." They parted ways, for once doing exactly what the Manager told them to do. There were sixteen rooms on the fourth basement, and the others had emptied five of those. Marco took the sixth, a woman with severe dissociative disorder, and Thatch took the seventh, a man with schizophrenia. Orderlies aided in the evacuation, as well, sedating the patients that needed it.

Thatch got to be the one to evacuate Ace, who had managed to do his straps back up. The water was almost three feet high by now, and Ace had been mildly wondering if he should go ahead and escape already. He masked a sigh of relief when his door opened, and immediately pretended to be loopy and out of it from sedatives. The orderly peeked at the medical chart and nodded. "No need to shoot him up; he just got 100 mg. Let's get him and go."

"Got it," Thatch said. Ace didn't know him at all, so he winked to show that he was an ally. A grateful look entered Ace's eyes when he saw it. "Since he's already off in la-la land, do you think you could skip ahead to the next room? I'll move him and be right back."

"Okay."

Once the straps were undone, Thatch slung Ace's limp arm around his shoulders and heaved him up. He made it up the stairs to the third basement before Ace began to support his own weight.

"So, you're our little evildoer, yes? Marco speaks well of you," Thatch said.

"Did he? He doesn't seem like the type to hand out compliments," Ace said.

"Oh, he's not. But you, Inspector Gadget, have earned them."

Ace grinned wolfishly. "Why, thank you. You got a key card to the locker room?"

"You mean this one?" Thatch wiggled the key card in the air.

"Yep. That'd be it. Come on; let's go."

They made it up to the ground floor and Thatch pushed Ace's wiry form behind him. They didn't want to risk Marshall catching sight of him before it was time.

Ace ran up to his locker. Instead of a typical padlock or combination lock, he had something that looked like a padlock, but had a grey, squishy substance set into the surface, not unlike the consistency of a kneaded eraser. Ace pressed his thumb into it, waiting. The lock popped open.

Thatch's eyes widened. "Holy shit; _that's_ what that thing was? Dude, that's awesome! Where did you get that?"

"Eh. Had a buddy in college who was paranoid as balls. Developed a bunch of these little things and offered to sell me one. What was I gonna do, say no?" Ace grinned. "I mean, they _are_ pretty damn cool. They only store one fingerprint, though. Which is why I couldn't ask Marco to go into my locker and fetch what I needed."

"Which is…?"

Ace pulled out a small bottle of what looked like salt crystals, or perhaps shards of cloudy glass, and shook it around. "This. Do you have the other thing?"

Thatch stuck a key into the padlock on his locker and withdrew what could only be described as a work of art. "Oh, yeah. I do."

Ace's face broke apart for grinning. "This is gonna be beautiful."

"There's that. But first, we gotta get you down to the second basement."

* * *

><p>It was Marco's job to fetch Marshall down to what was supposed to be the fourth basement to survey the damage.<p>

"What even happened to the thing? Water heaters don't just fucking explode," bitched Marshall.

"No, sir. Not in my memory, they don't. Still, there's a floor covered in three or four feet of water to contend with." They reached the second basement and Marco stopped where he was.

"Marco? I thought you said we were going to the fourth basement?" Marshall called, confused.

"That's what I thought, too, but it seems there are more pressing matters to attend to," Marco said blithely. He reached out and grabbed Marshall's collar, pulling him out into the hall. Immediately, Marshall found himself coated in little bits of white dust and what looked like grains of salt, or tiny chips of glass.

"What the hell is this?" he cried, before looking up and seeing Ace with an empty bottle. He paled quickly.

"That, my dear employer, happens to be dry Sodium Hydroxide. It's completely harmless…" Marshall sighed slightly in relief. "…right now." He tensed again.

Ace pulled something out from behind his back. "Say hello to my little friend."

Marshall just stared, aghast. "What in the fuck is _that_?"

"This, sir, is a Super Soaker Aqua Master Krypton. I've taken the liberty of fully charging it with the water down in the fourth basement." He began pumping the water gun to build up pressure in the barrel. "Remember that bit where I said that dry Sodium Hydroxide is harmless? Well, that's only when it's dry. When it's wet…" He grinned. "…the story changes a wee bit. Just burning through flesh, screaming, chemical burns… Y'know. Little stuff like that. Move to shake it off and I'll cover you with water before you can sneeze."

"What do you want?" Marshall hissed between clenched teeth.

"You've got universal keys. Let our good buddy Luffy here out. Ah! But not on your own. Hand Marco the keys. There's a good boy."

"You're deranged," Marshall whispered, though he did as he was told.

"Oh, yes; quite. Difference is, I'm just sane enough to put my deranged-ness to good use."

Marco unlocked Luffy's door and Luffy burst out. "What's going on? Ace, you're all right? I heard something about flooding-"

"Nothing we need to worry about right now, Luffy," Ace said. "We're leaving. Zoro and a whole bunch of other very nice people are waiting for you right now. Shall we?"

Luffy's face slowly morphed into one of utter glee. "Really? We can go?"

"We can do whatever I say we can do," Ace said. "All right. Back up… Slowly now…" He rotated so his back was to the staircase and Marshall was stuck standing right where he was. Marco pushed Luffy ahead of him up the stairs.

"You got this?" he asked Ace.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Go on."

Marshall's eyes darted back and forth between the nozzle of the Super Soaker and the fire extinguisher on the wall. Just as Ace's attention was divided, he made a wild leap for it and tried to swing it at Ace. Ace ducked and fired his water gun right into Marshall's face. "I quit!" he bellowed as he turned and ran before he could see the results. The horrible screaming was a good indication, though.

Marco looked a little pale. "You realise you probably just killed a man. Or at least seriously disfigured one."

"At least I've got a good shot at that insanity plea," Ace said grimly.

* * *

><p>(AN): Sorry this took so long. Like I said: school. I'll edit this for mistakes later, but right now, I've got class and HOLY SHIT I HAVE TO GO I'M GONNA BE LATE.


	12. And Let the World Spin Madly On

**Chapter 12**

Ace had never felt more stressed in his life. Not even when he was running from Marshall, arm half out of its socket and bloodstream pumped full of knock-out drugs as he was about to be imprisoned forever in a loony bin. This time, if authorities caught him, there would be no explaining himself. No "Oh, I'm innocent, officer, but the guy trying to kill me over here is a corrupt rat-bastard". He'd thrown a base on a person's face. Okay, it wasn't as dramatic as saying he threw acid on someone's face, but the effect was pretty much the same. He wasn't sure what the criminal charge would be exactly. Probably assault at the very least. The guys down in evidence would get a few giggles when they saw the weapon used was a water gun. Always pleasant to know he would be good for a few laughs. Maybe the judge would have a severe case of "you're funny so I'm going to let you off with a couple months in prison instead of the rest of your goddamn life" syndrome.

"So," he panted out as he found his seat in the back of a van, still tired from the dash up way too freaking many flights of stairs and then out into the parking lot. For quite a while he'd been kept as immobile as possible, drugged up and loopy, so his muscles were protesting their sudden intense use. "Who might all the people be who I don't know?" He paused. "Was that correct grammar? Wait, no, that's right, I don't give a shit."

"You're kinda weird, ain't ya, kid?" Thatch asked, chuckling as he yanked himself into the driver's seat. A few others piled in, including Marco, Haruta, Luffy, Nami, and Usopp. The other six were taking a separate van, because there were only so many people you could fit in a tiny little space like that. Granted, some of them had tiny little asses and could probably squeeze into just about anywhere (Ace spared Haruta a glance as he thought it), but putting twelve people in one van just wasn't going to work. They didn't like each other _that_ much.

"So you gonna answer my question or not?" Ace asked. "You said you were a friend of Marco's, right?"

"Yeah," Thatch said. "Everybody in this van is here to save either you or scrawny-butt over there."

"Hey!" Luffy protested. "I eat three times my weight in meat every day! It's not _my_ fault my butt's tiny."

"It's an expression, ya dippy-doodle."

"Ignore him," Marco said. "Thatch here is a weird one."

"Your name is Thatch?" Ace asked.

"Yeah. I guess I didn't introduce myself. Sorry 'bout that. You already know Marco. The midget girl is Haruta –" he ignored the outraged growling from the girl "– and I'm gonna let the others introduce themselves."

"I'm Nami and this is Usopp," Nami said, gesturing with a thumb. Usopp offered a tired grin and a wave and Ace warily returned them. "We're good friends of Luffy's."

"Yup! We've been friends since we were, like, negative two," Luffy said.

"Our mums were friends," Usopp explained.

"Your voice sounds kind of familiar, but I can't place it," Ace said.

"Yeah. I was with Zoro when we went to go pick up Luffy the first time but found out our dude with the key got himself locked up."

Ace laughed nervously. "Ehehe… Right. Knew I knew you from somewhere. Never got to see your face, unfortunately."

"Big steel doors tend to impede your vision a bit, yeah."

"So…" Ace said, "how much time in prison can I expect for planning something like this?"

Thatch couldn't help the derisive guffaw of laughter. "None. The cops around these parts couldn't carry out an investigation if it had handles. Anywhere else and you'd have to worry. Why do you think ol' Marshall decided to set up shop in this tax district, anyway?"

"Are you sure?" Ace asked.

"Let me tell you a little story. Local cops do a drugs bust on this motel room, right? They're going through all the pills and shit that are lying around, but they don't know what any of 'em are, so they're on walkie-talkies with downtown, reading off descriptions of everything for the guys to catalogue and identify later. One picks up something and reads straight into the walkie-talkie, 'rectangular pill, pale orange, reads P-E-Z…' I shit you not. The guys downtown are busting up and the guy on the other end has no idea what's so damn funny, and didn't until they told him. True story," Thatch said.

"…Wow. Okay, then," Ace muttered. "Wait, how do you know any of this?"

"It pays for a renowned criminal to tap police frequencies here and there."

If Ace had been drinking something, it would have been all over the back seat. "The fuck? Another one? God damn it, we had it bad enough with Zoro!"

"I know, bro. I know," Usopp said sadly, shaking his head.

"If you're not a fan of hanging around high-profile criminals, then you're probably gonna shit one ponderous brick when you see Oyaji," Haruta said.

"Oyaji? Who's 'oyaji'?" Ace sounded very panicked, as though he weren't before.

"Just trust me, Ace," Marco said softly. "I wouldn't trust these guys if they weren't trustworthy. They're criminals in the same way that you and Luffy are crazy – they are largely as such because of the government that's been screwing them over since Day 1."

Ace didn't know why, but he believed him. Of course, Marco did just basically grant him back his life and his freedom. He would probably believe anything Marco told him.

Neither Thatch's van nor the van Namur was driving caught sight of the demure blue Honda Civic trailing behind them.

* * *

><p>"…It's an abandoned HQ," Ace said. He turned to Thatch and Marco and raised an eyebrow.<p>

"What, you were expecting the Taj Mahal? Falling Water, perhaps? Or maybe gothic architecture, if you're into buttresses."

"Never mind."

"Solid plan."

Marco sighed. "Yes, he is always like this and no, there isn't an Off button. And yes, we've checked everywhere," he droned.

Usopp coughed awkwardly. "Everywhere?"

"It's best we leave it at that." He strode forward towards the building, leaving Ace, Nami, and Usopp to exchange mildly alarmed looks.

"YO, GUUUUUUUUYS! I THOUGHT YOU WANTED YOUR PSYCHOS BACK! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?" yelled Thatch at the top of his lungs. In the mostly-barren warehouse, it echoed loudly. Shouts of excitement beyond a stack of boxes resounded and a large group of men and women either calmly walked out or ran at top-speed towards them.

A young boy who couldn't be older than 15 or so slammed into Luffy in a massive hug, blubbering hysterically.

"Hi, Chopper. Missed you, too!" Luffy said, laughing as though his lungs weren't being crushed as he hugged the boy back.

The others were a bit calmer about the way they greeted Luffy, but the intense emotions were still very much there in their eyes and the way they moved, as though they had to physically restrain themselves from crushing the boy in hugs of their own. Ace saw Zoro and thought he recognised the other person Luffy had broken out of prison, Nico Robin.

Zoro just ruffled Luffy's hair, grinning, as a greeting. He allowed the others to get their welcome-backs out of the way and went to stand by Ace.

"So… nice job," he said.

"Thanks. I was pleased with it." Ace darted him a sideline glance. "Told you I'd get him out."

"Well, you're a man of your word. I'll give you that one. Kind of sucks that you got screwed a bit from all this, though." It was as close as Zoro was ever getting to an apology, and Ace recognised that. He smiled slightly.

"You're a man of your word, as well. You could have left me to rot, you know."

"No, he couldn't," growled Marco. "Not if he wanted our help."

Ace just chuckled. "He wasn't going to leave me there either way."

Zoro couldn't help shooting Ace a strange look. How had he known that? The last person who had understood him so well, so quickly was… Luffy.

"Not that it matters. I mean, we're all out and safe and as far as I can tell, not locked up, all of which I regard as plusses." Ace said.

"Can't argue with that."

"Hey, Ace," Thatch said, bounding up to him. "I'd say it's about damn time you met Oyaji."

Ace rolled his eyes. "Seriously, you guys, who the fuck is 'oyaji'?"

Marco cleared his throat and pointed at the massive man steadily making his way towards them.

Ace's eyes widened. "Oh, holy shit," he whispered. "The guy's giant!" Oddly, his first thought went something along the lines of, 'If I had to play basketball against this guy, I'd probably just go and kill myself.' He didn't say it out loud, because it was just stupid.

"Ace and Luffy, I presume?" he boomed.

"Hey, giant old dude!" Luffy said, waving with his whole arm. Ace nearly had a coronary. The little shit was going to get himself killed one of these days. Thank God the man had a sense of humour, because he was laughing in a gurgling kind of way that didn't seem too pissed off.

"Good to meet you both. I'm Edward Newgate. I've heard a good deal about the two of you."

Ace stamped on his trepidation with iron cleats. "Hello, sir! I'm Ace, as you might've guessed. Nice to meet you too. Do you prefer Ed, Eddy, Edward, Newgate, or Oyaji?" he asked, holding out a hand for the man to shake. If he got killed, he was going to get killed showing off balls like a brass monkey. "I'm assuming Luffy's 'giant old dude' moniker ain't cuttin' it."

Newgate made that gurgling laugh again and gladly shook Ace's hand. "If you're uncomfortable with 'Oyaji', just 'Newgate' is fine."

"I can manage that," Ace said. "I understand I've got a good deal to thank you for. Well, you and everybody here, of course."

He nodded. "You're most welcome. It's nice having somebody else plan all the complicated nonsense once in a while. Are you certain you wouldn't mind staying on permanently?"

Ace blinked. "'Fraid I don't follow, Mister Newgate."

"It's a job offer, dumbass," Marco said, elbowing him.

"You've attacked government officials. They had it coming, mind, but the charges still stand. You're a criminal now. So are we. We like you. You don't appear to loathe us. We have need of someone with expertise. You've got it. You have need of a place to go where you're not going to get imprisoned for sneezing funny. We're offering one. I didn't think it was remarkably overcomplicated for someone of your intellect," Newgate said.

Ace couldn't help the laugh that burst from him. "Wait… you're serious? You're offering me a job _and_ a place to live _and_ protection from the law?" Newgate nodded. "…Well, God damn." Ace whistled in appreciation. "Thank you. Err… I don't suppose you'd let me sleep on it or something?"

"By all means."

"Thank you."

"Now you, Mister Luffy, also appear to be in need of a good hideout, along with your criminally-inclined friends. My offer also extends to you," Newgate said.

Luffy just laughed. "No, thanks! We can handle ourselves, Mister!" Ace really shouldn't have been surprised, and he wasn't. Luffy would be content with his lot in life no matter where it landed him. He'd proven that when he'd ended up in the sanatorium and still retained that cheerful conquer-all attitude. From the way Luffy's friends were exchanging grins and rolled eyes, this was definitely expected.

"Fair enough. I tried," Newgate said. "Just don't expect me to jump to your rescue if you ever need help. You had your chance. Muffed it. I'm just pointing this out."

"No worries, man! We got this," Luffy said confidently.

"God, I hope you're right," Ace muttered.

"Mm-hmm," Marco said.

Suddenly, a man tore through the warehouse, darting for Newgate like his life depended on it. "Oyaji! They were followed! There's this girl – she doesn't know we know she's here! What do you want us to do?"

Ace flinched as though struck. _Please God, oh God oh God oh God, please tell me she hasn't called the cops. Or worse: Marshall. Shit shit shit shit…_

Newgate's eyes hardened. "Bring her in. Check her mobile phone records. If the last call made was to the police, we pack up and move. If not, turn off the phone and we'll have a nice chat."

The man nodded and motioned for someone else to come back him up. They went out of the building through separate exits, and Ace could only think that they were going to try for a pincer movement.

The silence was crushing as everyone waited for the results. Thankfully, it wasn't a full five minutes before the two men came back, bearing a struggling young woman between them.

Ace's eyes widened, as did Luffy's, Marco's, Norm's, and Norma's.

It was Nurse Hannah.

* * *

><p>(AN): Next time I get off my ass and explain what a Class A is. I meant to do it this time, but the bit right before it took longer than I thought it would. Next chapter, I can get into the explanation right off the bat. 'Bout damn time, too.

I'm sorry I didn't update sooner. Life has been a hassle. I've had essays and projects and tests non-fucking-stop since I got back and… well, you don't need to hear me bitch. I hope you're all doing splendidly! It's rather good to be back, but don't expect a quick update. I've got three projects due next week and a quiz the day after tomorrow. Oh, and scheduling my fall semester. Bugger me.

Oh, and that thing about the drugs bust with PEZ candy? It's a true story. My dad's a cop and he heard about it from the guys who were in evidence recording everything.


	13. I Let the Day Go By

I'm back, babies! Finished my first year of university!~

WARNING: Excessive technical shit ahead.

**Chapter 13**

Ace hadn't planned for this. He hadn't believed it possible, but now wondered why he hadn't thought of it. Okay, so the others had a little in that they had sent the separate vans their separate ways through multiple routes to get to their end destination, but at the time, Ace sincerely had not believed that anyone would bother following them. He could bang his head against a brick wall for achieving this level of stupidity. At least it was only Hannah. It _was_ only Hannah, right?

"Her mobile?" Newgate asked.

"It was switched off before we even touched it, Oyaji," someone said.

Newgate nodded, then turned to the young woman tied tightly to one of those folding chairs. God only knew where it had come from. "Now, from Marco, Norm, Norma, and Ace, I'm aware you worked at Greenburgh State Psychiatric Hospital. The relevant questions at this point have to do with why you're here, who else knows you're here, and what we're going to do with your body."

Hannah's already-large eyes doubled in size. "N-no! I came alone, I swear! I didn't bring anyone with me! Hand to God! I don't want to get anybody here tossed in jail! Please, you have to believe me!"

"I don't _have_ to believe anyone," Newgate pointed out. "And why are you here if not to alert the authorities?"

She didn't speak at first, but Ace saw her eyes dart towards him and Luffy, resting especially hard on the younger man.

"What about Luffy made you follow him?" he asked.

She looked startled, and he realised that it must have sounded like a mind-reading trick to her. He allowed himself a tiny smile. Okay, so he could still be observant when he tried. Perhaps his pride hadn't been completely stomped all over. At least it was salvageable.

She stared at her feet and began speaking haltingly. "He… Luffy… I need him."

Ace and Marco exchanged concerned looks. "Why?" Ace asked.

"He's something different. You don't understand – I need to study him."

"He ain't a test subject, Hannah," Marco said quietly. "He's a human being. He doesn't belong in any place that forgets that tiny detail."

"I don't mean it like that, I swear!" Hannah cried. "You don't understand-"

"Then explain it to us."

She looked a bit lost for words at that point, blinking rapidly. Her eyes searched something invisible for a little while as her mouth opened and closed, as though she was trying to start a sentence but couldn't.

"Seems like you don't quite understand it yourself," Thatch joked.

"That's not it. I just… I'm not sure where to start," she said. She finally looked up, but was staring at Ace when she did. "You have a degree in the sciences, right? What do you know about the sixth sense? Precognition? Telekinesis? Any of that?"

Ace was surprised. Where the hell was she going with this? He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Not altogether much. Had a room-mate back at university who did a research paper on it, but I never asked him too much on the subject. Actually, he was researching the Global Consciousness Project."

She nodded. "The GCP, right. Founded by Roger Nelson. May as well go through the whole thing.

"There's this concept, or theory, floating around that all human consciousnesses extend beyond human bodies, and act like magnetic fields to link consciousnesses. They call them 'morphic fields'. Like how birds can fly in formation using magnetic fields to align their thought patterns. Actually, humans can pick up on magnetic fields the same way. There was an experiment in which two people in separate, darkened rooms were subjected to the exact same magnetic field. They flashed a light at only one of the people, but the other described the same experience happening to them. Consciousnesses can be linked. What's more, there is some rather controversial data that implies telekinesis. People think human consciousness can affect the outcome of a Random Number Generator to be slightly but significantly less random. Put those two ideas together and you come up with your Global Consciousness Project.

"Well, there's also a theory that there are those who can alter their own morphic fields to align with another's, and experience what they experience. It's called remote viewing. You might have heard of it before, but probably not in this context."

"Actually, yeah… A lot of this is sounding familiar. He made me proofread his paper for him," Ace muttered. "Didn't mention anything about remote viewing, though."

"Probably not, if he was talking about the GCP. Remote viewing concentrates on the individual, and the GCP, like its name, concentrates on the global picture. There's also evidence through a whole lot of testing that humans can see slightly into the future on an unconscious level. Basically, it's-"

"-Intuition! Advanced intuition, also known as precognition!" Ace said, delighted that he remembered this bit.

"Yes! Exactly! And all of these incredible things – precognition, telekinesis, remote viewing – they're all basic attributes of the human condition! Everyone can do them! Maybe not accurately, and definitely not all the time, but every human can do them, given the right circumstances. Here's where we get to the part you won't have heard of, though." Her face darkened.

"Approximately seventeen years ago, the government organised a low-key scientific project to determine the source of these abilities. After three years, they produced a number of genetic codings that had to coincide for a human to further develop their sixth sense-related… powers? Abilities? Whatever you like to call them. Unfortunately, those genetic predispositions also… they also made the person predisposed towards any number of mental problems. The people with the strongest ESP were much more likely to be the clinically insane."

"Wait, what?" Thatch yelped. "You mean all crazy people are secretly super-powered?"

"No! Actually, strengthened ESP is really, really rare. The federal government set up testing procedures to search for those with the required genetic coding. Less than 0.002% of the population of the world has a predisposition for it, and a smaller still percentage of those actually get institutionalised, and then an even _smaller_ percentage of _them_ get tested. Then take that tiny fraction of the population and start classing them, and we get a ridiculously small number of people the government even cares about."

"Classing? What is that, exactly?"

"Technically, everyone has a class they belong to," Hannah said. "Normal people, with vague intuitions and basically negligible abilities, are in Class F. The government ignores these people, because they basically encompass the rest of the 99.998% of the population I told you about. They go in regular psychiatric hospitals. Anyone above a Class F, therefore, goes into special state psychiatric hospitals. There's only one in each state allotted to ESP research, and in this state, it's Greenburgh."

Ace's eyes widened. "So… everyone there… absolutely everyone… is one of these ESP-guys?"

Hannah nodded. "They're not very powerful, though. Greenburgh only houses Class Ds at the very strongest. And actually… they aren't called ESP-guys. The technical term is _Tirkkatarici_. It's Tamil for 'prophet'."

Ace rubbed his temples, feeling a headache coming on. "Well, God damn."

"I know. Class E means basically just heightened intuition and isn't much better than Class F, but it's still something, I guess. Class D produces infrequent and unreliable remote viewing, and it's where we start to get into the more important abilities. Class C and up are all moved towards interstate, federal psychiatric hospitals, which are directly under the control of the Cabinet Secretary of Health and Human Services. Class Cs have relatively accurate remote viewing. Class Bs…" she paused at this, and her jaw tightened. "Class Bs have relatively accurate remote viewing, same as Class Cs, but they also have mild telekinesis, which puts them in a class of their own. Class A is the most powerful class, and by far the smallest. In fact, they barely exist any more these days. They have powerful telekinesis, remote viewing that is always accurate – every single time – and above all else… they have mental stability." Hannah looked ready to cry.

Ace stiffened a little. "And that's why you were interested in Luffy. He's one of these guys, isn't he? A Tirkk-whatever. And you think he's a Class A because he isn't clean off his rocker like the rest of them."

Hannah nodded silently.

"And what makes you think he can do any of this?"

She quirked a tiny, almost regretful smile. "He's already done remote viewing."

"_What_?" The entire room turned to stare at Luffy.

"Yeah, seriously. What?" Luffy asked. "I don't remember doing that crap."

"The painting, remember?"

Luffy looked confused for all of two seconds, then brightened visibly. "Oh, hey! Yeah, I remember that! But that's not remote-control viewing or whatever you called it. I just painted shit and it came out pretty cool."

"No, no you didn't!" Hannah said. "You painted – with your _eyes closed_, I should add – a room you'd never seen before in your life, down to the slightest of crack in the cinder blocks. Down to the names on the clipboard hung in the corner! You knew exactly where Ace was when you had no way, absolutely no way of knowing through normal means! What the hell was that, if it wasn't remote viewing?" she cried.

Ace gaped. "…You painted the room where they were keeping me?" he asked.

Luffy shrugged. "I guess so? Didn't know it was at all accurate, though."

"Accurate?" Hannah laughed bitterly. "A photograph couldn't have gotten that much detail right. And you're sane, to boot. There's no way in hell you're anything but a Class A."

Ace shifted his gaze over to the girl tied to the chair. The realisation hit him like a brick to the face.

"You know someone who isn't, don't you? Sane, that is."

She froze. Slowly, she lifted her face to stare him in the eye. "Yes. My younger step-brother… William… He's a Class B. We didn't know what was wrong at first…" Her voice trailed off as her eyes started to fill. "He barely recognises me any more," she whispered. "But he – _he_ is just fucking fine!" She sat up, eyes blazing. "Luffy is _Tirkkatarici_, and yet he is perfectly sane. I'd never seen a Class A in my life before this. I need him! I need to study him! There has to be something about a Class A that enables sanity! If I can find what is different about him… maybe I can help my brother. Please. I need him."

"Listen, I can definitely sympathise with your cause. That decision belongs to Luffy, though, not you. So, Lu', what do you say?" Ace asked.

"I'll help! Sure! Hannah-banana's always been real nice to me!"

A tiny smile wound its way onto her face at the stupid nickname the patients at Greenburgh had made up for her ages ago. "Thank you, Luffy. Thank you."

"There is one detail that immensely bothers me," Newgate said, cutting in for the first time. "You say that Greenburgh State Psychiatric Hospital only houses Class D and below. Why, then, was Luffy there in the first place?"

"They didn't know he was a Class A. Or, they didn't… until I told them. I'm sorry. If I'd been thinking clearly, I wouldn't have said a word, but I just got so excited… Well, they were planning on transferring him to one of those federal institutions I told you about."

"Which one?"

"That's just it. I don't know. It's probably the same one my brother is in, though," she said.

"And what exactly do they do with all their Tirkki- er, Tirkka-"

"_Tirkkatarici_."

"That. Thank you. What do they do with them once they've got them?"

"I don't know that, either. But here's the problem… Now that they know what he is, I don't think he's going to get very far."

"Huh?"

"What do you mean by that?" Zoro asked, voice carrying a dark threat.

"Er – no! No, I don't mean it like – ugh. What I'm saying is, there aren't very many Class As wandering around! They're not going to let Luffy get away if they can help it. They'll be searching the whole country and possibly the whole continent for him. They'll try to spin it internationally if they can. They're not going to let him go! His odds for evading the government forever are pretty slim. That's all I'm saying. They just… really, _really_ want him."

"Well, we want him more," Nami growled.

"Damn straight!" Usopp said.

"He's not going back there, or to any mysterious creepy federal hospital," Ace spat. "Never."

"Still… the important part is that for now, you pose no threat," Thatch said, talking to Hannah. He withdrew a small pocketknife and cut the industrial rope binding her to the chair. "We're going to ask you not to say a damn word, though, and you're not getting your mobile phone back. Standard procedure. Sorry."

"That's all right. I was thinking of getting a new one, anyway," she muttered.

"We'll walk you out," Marco offered, motioning for Ace to come with him.

They walked out to the parking lot, where only Hannah's car could be seen – the vans had been hidden around the back by the loading bay.

Ace sighed. He had to get something out in the air. "They're going to be after him no matter what, huh?"

"Yeah. Pretty much," she said.

"Then can I ask you a favour?"

She paused. "What kind of favour?"

"I need you to go back to Greenburgh and find out where they were going to transfer Luffy. I'm going to need to know, especially if your brother is in there, too."

"Hey, Ace… What the hell are you on about?" Marco asked.

"They're not going to drag him back if there's no place to drag him. Not to mention, if I can expose the living hell out of whatever they're doing to perfectly reasonable people, they're not going to be able to do anything to Luffy at all. Or me, or Hannah's brother, for that matter. Lu', there is no reason on God's green earth why you should live on the run for the rest of eternity. I'd like to put a stop to that, thank you very much. It's something I can do by myself, too, so I won't put you on the spot, or Thatch, or Newgate, or anybody."

"Are you sure about that?" Hannah asked.

"Hm?"

Hannah motioned for him to come closer. "Listen, Ace. We did your blood work while you were… well, drugged. You tested very positive."

"For the ESP shit?"

"Yes."

"…But I'm not insane," Ace said.

"That's rather the point," she said. "I think you might be in just as much danger as Luffy."

"But I've never done remote viewing! I'm not telekinetic. I have done nothing notable for pretty much my entire damn life – why are you shaking your head? Why?"

"It doesn't matter what you have or haven't done. What matters is what they _think_ you can do. If they think you're a powerful _Tirkkatarici_," she shrugged, "then they're probably going to chase you every bit as hard as they will Luffy. I'm just warning you. It's one of those things you ought to know."

Ace was silent for a few seconds. "…Right. Thank you."

"You're welcome. Stay safe, Ace. You're a good guy," she said, slipping into the driver's seat. "Bye."

Ace watched her car drive off, then turned to go back into the warehouse. He didn't even hear Marco calling after him. He had a lot to think about.

* * *

><p>(AN): Well, now you know. And for your information, the grand majority of my research is legitimate. Not any of the 'government did this' stuff, but the basic research is all true. Yes, most of that research is controversial, but there is experimental proof implying that humans have some serious unconscious intuition. Now, when unconscious intuition worms its way into conscious intuition, it becomes what we might term ESP. If you would like to look at my research, I'll see what I can dredge up. There's very little information on remote viewing, though, as I was occupied primarily with telekinesis and intuition, precognition, presentiment, or whatever name they've begun applying to it now.

I'm really getting into this now. I've got great shit in mind and while I'm still in school (summer college courses. Booooooooooo), I feel I can still get a reasonable amount of shit done.

Tamil is the language of Southern India and Sri Lanka, for those interested. It's actually a very beautiful language.


	14. I Always Say Goodbye

**Chapter 14**

While they didn't expect that Marshall would turn to the police due to the dubious nature of Ace's insanity, none of them were taking unnecessary chances, which meant that he couldn't go home to his apartment, at least for now. Ace had grudgingly accepted this. He could always grab his stuff later, right? And it wasn't like he had things that he loved dearly there. Actually, he'd only recently moved in, so the majority of his things – especially the sentimental things – were safely packed away in storage, so he wasn't risking it getting tossed out when he failed to pay his rent. He was hoping to get everything squared away (even though he wasn't sure just what 'everything' was at that point) before his bills became due, but Ace was not by nature particularly optimistic a man. He left that business to Luffy.

One thing Ace flatly refused to abide by was the abandonment of his beloved car. Marco explained to him that his car had been towed off of the highway after his unsuccessful escape attempt and had been impounded. Upon realising that he was planning a rescue of his vehicle, both Marco and Thatch, with whom Ace grew close quite rapidly, tried to convince him that it was too risky. His car could be pretty easily recognised, and on the off chance that Marshall really did contact law enforcement, putting out a BOLO on his license plates would be the easiest thing in the world. Then Ace brought up the issue of his personal mobility, calling forth images of him running on foot from cop cars, and they accepted his reasoning, with much muttering and sour faces. One of the guys hanging around (Curiel, was it? He wore a slouch hat that made him look a wee bit like a watermelon) happened to have some extra plates lying around from when he changed his own plates, so he offered to illegally let Ace 'borrow' them so as not to be recognised. The matter was settled.

So Marco had given him a lift to the impound lot, and here he was waiting for the high-school drop-out who manned the front counter to bring him his damn keys.

They were just sitting there in silence on that uncomfortable, dingy green monstrosity they called a bench, backs against the white cinder-blocks. Ace had no idea what Marco was thinking, but he had his own thoughts.

Luffy.

Why exactly did Ace want so much for him? Yes, they were friends. Yes, a good life was owed Luffy, and he hadn't had much luck on that particular route. But they hadn't been friends for very long at all. Only a month or two of fond acquaintanceship. If he thought about it, everything that made up Luffy's personality, on anyone else, would annoy the shit out of Ace. So why didn't Luffy annoy him? Why was Luffy so agreeable when others were not?

Already Ace had risked his job, subsequently lost his job, been drugged, beaten up, kidnapped, and more or less imprisoned on account of Luffy. And now, with Hannah's help, he was planning to do even more than that. He was preparing to tackle the entire bloody government, or at least the Cabinet Department of Health and Human Services, which somehow sounded a bit less drastic than it really was. Perhaps he lacked more sanity than he'd originally thought. Perhaps Marshall had been on to something.

He just couldn't help it.

Luffy was worth it.

It was clear he wasn't the only person who felt this way. Marco had somehow made similar attachments to Ace in much the same way as he did with Luffy. Marco had risked pretty much everything to save his ass, and Ace was beyond grateful and awed that someone as difficult-to-impress as Marco would hold him in such high regard. Somehow, that high regard had in turn earned him the high regard of Norm, Norma, and by God, Edward Newgate himself. Ace didn't feel that there was much to him to be impressed by. What on earth could be running through their heads? Maybe it was the same kind of stuff that was running through his whenever he wondered about why he loved Luffy so well.

Wait.

'Loved'?

Not like _that_, of course. But still, some part of Ace didn't exactly deny the phrasing. It felt comfortable. Natural. Familial, really. That had to be it. He thought of Luffy as family.

He had to admit, it a few small ways, they looked and acted a bit alike. Both had that wild head of black hair and dark eyes. Both had the same sense of humour and appetite. There were parts of Luffy that reminded Ace so much of… well, of what his mother told him his father was like. He'd never actually met the man, but he'd always imagined him to be a bit like Luffy – always laughing and never intimidated by the hell he stared into every day. That was before he learned to hate his father. The thought of hating Luffy was appalling.

They weren't long-lost cousins or brothers or any of that bullshit. This wasn't daytime television, for God's sake. But… maybe they were close. After all, if Hannah was doing this for _her_ brother, why couldn't Ace do it for _his_?

He smiled to himself at this. If he kept thinking like that, he might accidentally let it slip in conversation. Better nip that nonsense in the bud.

"Sir?"

"Huh?" Ace jerked out of his thoughts.

The teenager behind the counter wiggled the keys to Ace's car at him. "Didja want your car or not?"

"Gimme those," Ace muttered, swiping them out of the boy's greasy fingers. He'd been charged through the nose to get his car back, and he wasn't going to have these idiots mucking it up any further.

"Can we go now?" Marco asked.

"Yeah," he said. "I just need to swing by somewhere on my way back."

"If you want I can come with you. Make sure I don't find you handcuffed somewhere difficult-to-explain again."

Ace chuckled. "You make it sound like I was on drugs and did odd things because of hallucinations."

"Isn't that exactly what happened? Well come on, you git."

"That's 'Blithering Idiot' to you, sir," Ace said, elbowing Marco in the ribs as he passed.

"You do realise that's worse than 'git', right?"

"Naturally. Nothing worse than being insulted by someone who's not even good at it."

"You're a bastard. Just tell me where we're going and get in your stupid car."

Ace told him the address, grinning, and swung himself back into the familiar seat. His cushion that offered extra back support. His collection of mix CDs because of that one time he'd lost his iPod in amongst his piles of shit for a few months. His two graduate tassels hanging from the rear-view, along with a circular charm that had a great horned animal's skull on it. It generally creeped the hell out of people, but he'd made it in eighth grade in art class (he'd been going through one of those rebellious phases, which explained the design), and he loved the thing dearly. Whatever asshole had been in here last, presumably to get his car moved around the lot properly, smelled of cigarettes, and he was distinctly less than pleased about that, but all in all, he was just happy to have his baby back. If the cleanliness of the thing weren't dubious at best, be would have kissed the steering wheel.

"Hey, I just thought of something," Marco said through the rolled-down window.

"What?"

"Do you know if Luffy owns a car? I mean, his mobility problem is the same as yours. If he has or had a car, it might be worth knowing where the thing ended up."

Ace fought back a smile. "Forget the car. He doesn't even have a license."

"What, really? But he's what, eighteen? Nineteen?"

"Eighteen, and he told me it was because he always thought that crashing into things seemed more fun than avoiding them."

Marco looked at him, dumbstruck and yet amused. "You know, if that came out of anybody else-"

"-You'd think he was 'round the bend!"

"Exactly! But out of Luffy… It's practically to be expected."

"I know!" They had one of those helpless giggling (manly giggling, not that high-pitched girly shit) moments.

"Well, let's get going. I'll lead. You don't know your way around this city too well just yet, I think, and believe it or not, there are two separate roads named Greenwich here, and you're looking for the northern one," Marco said.

Ace's eyes got wide. "What, really? Who the hell designs these roads?"

"Haven't the faintest, but I suspect methamphetamines might have been involved."

* * *

><p>Hannah was waiting for them when they got there.<p>

"Did you have trouble getting here?" she asked.

"As little trouble as can be expected when you have two roads named Greenwich," Ace grumbled. "Thank God for Marco, or I would have been halfway down the Jersey Turnpike at this point."

"That's what I'm here for. No-one should be forced to enter New Jersey. I'm pretty sure the Geneva Convention forbids shit like that," Marco said.

"Amen," Ace said. "So, since you called, I'm assuming you've got your hands on something of interest?"

She nodded. "I didn't even mean to get it, actually. Marshall has been calling everyone into his office individually for questioning, and when one of the secretaries was in there, the front desk's phone rang…" She shrugged. "I picked it up, and they announced themselves pretty plainly."

"'They'? Could you be more specific?"

"Er, yes. Marshall was going to have Luffy transferred to Fall River Institution for Mental Health. In Massachusetts. Their front desk was calling to ask what happened with Luffy's transfer."

"Well, that was lucky," Marco muttered pensively. "Didn't have to go through any fuss or anything."

"I know. It's a weight off my shoulders, though," Hannah said. "I'd been agonising over how to phrase the question to Manager Marshall without getting him to think I'm prying all day."

Ace was making a little face. "Er… I know this might sound a little… well, _sadistic_, but you haven't happened to see Marshall's pudgy face recently, have you?"

Hannah looked like she was fighting off a smile. "Don't feel bad. He got what was coming to him. His face is wrapped in bandages, but unfortunately, they don't want his mouth to heal closed or his skin to heal too tight to speak, so they told him to talk as much as possible."

Both men winced. "Oh, God bless your soul, you unfortunate woman," Ace said.

"There is that, yes. I haven't got any more information. I just figured you'd want to know as soon as possible," Hannah said.

"Thank you. I mean it," Ace said.

She smiled. "You're welcome. Just stay safe. Both of you. And Luffy, too."

* * *

><p>(AN): And this is pretty much the last we'll see of Hannah for a long time. She's just a plot point, anyway, bless her heart. I just like her because she's this tiny, wee elfin thing, and I've got such a soft spot in my heart for those types. She's even got a pixie cut. It's the cutest thing in my head. She's got these freckles and the cutest dimples, too. Eyes like a bush baby, I swear.

See that whole 'brother' comparison, including both Luffy and glancingly Marco in the equation? I like to sneak the canon in there when you're not looking.


	15. I Watch the Stars From My Windowsill

Not dead, incidentally. For those who didn't know how much I adore Trafalgar Law... just know I am having wee estrogen fits like mad over recent chapter of One Piece.

**Chapter 15**

Nami lent Ace her laptop for research, although she mentioned something about collecting interest if he so much as got his grimy fingerprints on the display. Ace had some concerns about that, since he didn't know the woman well enough to tell whether or not she was serious, but let it go. He had more important things to worry about.

He'd been reading up on his ESP shit, especially the writings of Daryl Bem, Dean Radin, and Roger Nelson. He'd been through more parapsychology journals than he had even known existed. He'd even watched one of those Discovery Channel documentaries, narrated by Morgan Freeman. That, thank heaven, had been nowhere near as dry as the massive blocks of data and analysis he'd had to sift through with the journal articles.

Ace had been staring at the same table for about six minutes or so and hadn't comprehended a single number. His music blared in his ears as he spaced out.

"Getting hungry?" a booming voice asked.

Ace nearly jumped a foot in the air, yanking his ear-buds out. "Mr. Newgate? Shi – er, I'm sorry, sir. I didn't notice you there."

"Perfect all right. But did you hear my question?" he asked.

Ace paused. "…No, sir. Sorry."

"You don't need to keep apologising, you know. I asked if you were getting hungry. Lord knows you've been at this a very long time. When did you last eat?"

Ace's eyes wandered around, then widened. "You know… I have no idea. I don't even remember _what_ I ate. It might have been yesterday evening, but I'm not sure. I get confused," he said.

Newgate rubbed at his temple. "You're doing no-one a favour by starving yourself."

"I just wasn't hungry! It's not like I'm anorexic or something."

"Wasn't hungry or didn't notice you were hungry?"

Ace blanched. "Okay, so it was the latter. And that's supposed to magically worm its way into my consciousness?"

"Thatch is making a run to this nice little sandwich shop down the way. A little sketchy, but their mesquite turkey is a delight. I'll ask him to pick you up something." He rose to leave.

Ace jumped up. "Uh – er, you don't - !" Newgate raised an eyebrow. Ace coloured. "…You really don't have to do that. I can get my own food. Honest."

"You _can_, certainly. But are you going to? Let me take care of the half-drowned, half-starved kitten I found in a government-sanctioned cardboard box, if you please. I have a great fondness for such creatures." He smiled. "That was a metaphor, by the way."

He managed to pull a smile from Ace. "I might've picked up on it, yeah."

Newgate nodded. "No food allergies we need be aware of?"

"No, but I kind of hate tomatoes."

"You're going to eat your vegetables and you're going to like them, young man," Newgate said, ruffling the young man's hair and leaving. His voice bellowed after him, "And you're going to get up and stretch your legs a bit, too!"

Ace sat back down and shook his head in wonderment. "My God, it's like Mum's been reincarnated as a weird old man with ponderous facial hair." He laughed a little to himself. "At least it explains why they call him Oyaji."

Newgate was probably right in telling him to get up and stretch his legs, though. He'd been at it since about 4:30 in the morning and it was now… 7:15 at night. …Okay, so it was not lunchtime like he thought. He really should have been keeping a closer eye on the clock. He needed to stretch, eat, and then sleep, and in the morning he'd be ready to take another crack at it. He still needed to analyse the more in-depth specs on the Fall River Institute for Mental Health. The blueprints were a matter of public record, but getting a hold of them online was going to be irritating. He should probably borrow someone else's laptop, as well, just in case the IP address was tracked. Since Nami had a traceable connection to Luffy, it probably was not wise to use her laptop in case Fall River IMH had set up recording pings on their files. If they could track the IP addresses of all the visitors to the page, Ace had no doubt they could easily hack into the tiny laptop and determine ownership. It also might be better if he could access the files from Starbucks Wifi or something. If Google Maps could pinpoint the location of a laptop, the US Government probably could, too.

With that determined, he stood up. The room immediately began to swirl. He braced himself on the edge of desk and waited for it all to settle down.

…Yeah, he needed to get up and walk around. And also food. Food would be marvellous.

Ace didn't really know what to do with himself. Everybody in films would announce that they were 'going for a walk', but what did one really _do_ on a walk? How did they decide where to go? Did they just wander around aimlessly and hope they knew the way back? That seemed rather dangerous. Especially if they were escaped inmates – oh, sorry, _patients_ – of a mental hospital.

He could always go and pester someone. That seemed promising.

It was then that his mind pulled up and image of Luffy. This was reasonable, Ace thought. Luffy had been a pretty constant presence for a long while. Whenever Ace had needed to talk or stretch his legs before, he went either to Marco or Luffy. Frequently, Marco was doing his job, so Luffy would end up the default. At the moment, Marco wasn't working (that Ace knew of, at least), but Ace knew he was out doing something or other. Thatch was out picking up sandwiches.

It was lucky that Luffy had opted to stick around, even if he wasn't going to join forces with Newgate. He had promised to remain both for Hannah's sake and for Ace's, proclaiming that if Ace decided to 'ditch the old guys', he could always expect open arms from Luffy and his lot. Actually, since Robin and Zoro didn't have a place to stay, either, they were staying there, as well. Maybe that had more to do with it than anything else.

Ace loudly knocked on the door. "Yo, Lu'? You in there?"

Luffy opened the door. "Hiya, Ace!"

"Finally come outta your cave, huh?" Zoro asked from the couch.

"Had to do it sometime. There's only so many times you can read through the eleventh volume of the _Journal of Scientific Exploration_ before your brain decides it's just not worth it. Plus I haven't eaten yet today."

Luffy reeled back. "You… haven't eaten today?" he asked in shock. "How are you still _alive_?"

Ace shook his head. "It's a mystery."

"Well, end the mystery and grab a seat and a beer," Zoro said.

Ace paused. "Er, Zoro? How old are you again?"

"Nineteen."

"…You know beer isn't exactly legal for your-"

"Neither's breaking out of prison, but I don't hear you bitching about _that_. Grab a damn beer."

Ace accepted the loss and the beer.

"So, what's on the telly?"

"_Someone Psychotic Told You You Could Dance_," Zoro said.

"It's _So You Think You Can Dance_, dear," Robin corrected.

"Yeah. That's what I said."

"They're doing Bollywood next. This is gonna kick ass."

"Or suck horribly."

"Even better."

"At least it's not the Russian Polka."

"Amen to that, sister."

"New drinking game: every time a judge says the word 'feet', drink."

"Done."

"What if they say 'foot'?"

"Use your best judgement."

They went on like that for a while, Ace staying through Hip-Hop, Contemporary, and a particularly spicy Viennese Waltz. Zoro passed out halfway and Robin had opted to delve into a book Newgate had kindly lent her.

"Hey, Luffy?" Ace asked quietly.

"Hm? Whatchya need?"

"Can we talk outside for a little bit?"

Luffy got up and Ace followed him out.

"If you need someone to hold your hair back if you ralph, you need to ask somebody else –"

"That's not it, dumbass! I hold my alcohol better than _that_. Do I really look like a lightweight to you?"

"How bad you want me to answer that?"

"…Whatever. Setting that aside." He breathed deeply. "You know that… that remote viewing painting thingy that Hannah said you did?"

"Yeah? What about it?" Luffy asked.

"Could you show me how you did it? Hannah said I've got the same… genes, coding, whatever-it-is… that you do, so I should theoretically be able to do it, too. I just want to know how you did it."

"You want to try it yourself?" Luffy guessed.

"Well, yeah."

Luffy beamed. "Sure! You got some big paper? Paints 'n' shit?"

"Weirdly enough, I do. Hannah gave me some the other night when I was picking up my car and she said some cryptic shit about 'this might come in handy' or something," Ace said.

"Perfect! Let's go to the bathrooms."

"Huh?"

"Well, we're gonna finger-paint. It gets kinda messy," Luffy said reasonably. "If I need to scratch something, I'd like it if it weren't hot pink once I was done."

Ace nodded. "Okay. I'll grab the stuff and meet you in the bathrooms."

"Boys' or girls'?"

Ace gave him a very odd look as he trotted away.

"_Whaaaaat_? You have no sense of adventure!"

* * *

><p>"Okay."<p>

"Okay."

"You ready?"

"I think so."

"Now, remember: no peeking. And don't try to actually paint anything. Just have a question in your head and go nuts."

"Er… okay. Like what kind of question?"

"I don't know! What do you want to know?"

Ace blanched a little. To be honest, he wanted to know what to expect when he would finally infiltrate Fall River. That was scheduled to occur in the next three days, actually, and he was nervous as hell.

"I might have something in mind."

"Oh yeah? What is it?"

"…Eh, it's just something little. Nothing important." Ace did _not_ want Luffy involved. Not this time. He never wanted to see Luffy come to harm ever again, and he knew that if he told Luffy what he was planning, the younger boy would undoubtedly find a way to come along for the ride whether Ace wanted him to or not. It was far better to keep his plans to himself.

"What, you're not gonna tell me? _Booooooo_. Boo, you whore," Luffy moaned.

"I never liked that movie," Ace mentioned absently.

"Huh?"

"Nothing. So… is there any trick to getting started, or do you just… go?"

Luffy perked up. "Yeah, that's pretty much it. Just close your eyes, know what you want, what you have, and make sure you can get what you need."

Ace hesitantly poked his fingers around the piece of paper, then the paint tubs. He technically knew the order of the colours from right to left and back again, but it was still rather daunting to just reach for one. Keeping his eyes closed was hard. He twitched a finger lightly in what he was pretty sure was the green paint. He brought his finger over to the paper only to realise that the paper was much closer than he'd anticipated.

"No! Not like that!" Luffy huffed.

"Well, I can't fucking see the paper! What do you want from me?"

"No, just… here, let me –" Luffy reached around and grabbed Ace's wrist.

"Would you _not_, please?" Ace snapped.

"Well, if you're not gonna do it right, then I ma-"

"Well, if you'd fucking describe just what the hell I'm supposed to be doing instead of your weird cryptic bullshit, maybe I'd do it right!"

"I was crystal clear. Not my fault you're an idiot."

"This is rich – coming from the guy who failed – how many classes in senior year of high school? Oh, that's right – _all of them_."

"Least I'm not an asshole!"

"Touché! Now can you just try explaining it to me again, but in actual human terms this time?"

Luffy heaved a giant sigh. "Fine. It's really hard to explain. Gee, sorry if I don't manage to produce perfect results the first frickin' time you try it."

"I'm sorry I yelled, okay? I'm just… you were all… never mind," Ace muttered.

"Mm. Anyway, don't try and think of an answer. Think of the question. Don't try to think of tubs of paint. Think of the rainbow, out of which you pick the colours you need. Don't think of how far away anything is, or of any of that shit. It just feels like slopping paint onto a piece of paper. If you feel like you should do something, even if you have no idea what it is or why you should need to do it, do it. Just go with it. If nothing comes of it, nothing comes of it. No harm done. Don't get all bent out of shape. And don't try to direct the paint anywhere. Let it go where _it_ wants, not where _you_ want it to be."

Luffy's slightly rough, calm voice floated through Ace's mind as he tried to grasp the meaning of the words. It still didn't make much sense. If anybody walked in, he was going to look fucking ridiculous.

May as well get it over with.

Actually…

"Hey, Luffy?"

"Yeah?"

"I think I get the basic concept, even if I screw up execution. Erm… could you… maybe not look over my shoulder? I keep feeling like you're going to correct me as soon as I breathe."

Luffy chuckled. "Yeah; sure. I think it's Harry Potter weekend on ABC Family."

Ace smiled. "Good luck with that."

"Thanks. You, too!"

Ace waited until Luffy's footsteps were long gone to actually begin painting in the most random, higgledy-piggledy way he'd ever heard of in his life.

* * *

><p>"So?" Luffy asked as Ace trudged into the television room.<p>

"Utter failure. I suck at life. Move over. I need to watch Malfoy get turned into a ferret to make me feel better about my self-worth as human being."

* * *

><p>(AN): So… my laptop had this moment where it was like, 'Oh, I'm sorry, you wanted the screen to actually light up so you could do things? TOUGH SHIT, SUGAR. YOU CAN SUCK MY HARD DRIVE.' …And that's why I didn't update last weekend. I didn't have my laptop with me because it was in shop. I also couldn't during the week because I have summer classes. Eff my life. Everybody else gets the summer off, or they work in fast-food, which is hardly problem-solving. Also, you get money for it. I get nothing but homework problems that have me banging my head against walls on occasion. Or, y'know, shooting my screen with my Nerf gun. That works, too.

I like that Newgate has already more or less adopted Ace, whether he accepts the job offer or no. There's something about him that just makes you want to give him the world.

I promise you, I will get to interesting things next chapter. Super mega-ultra promise. I have some awesome things planned out, but most require me to set the stage properly, and I just can't do it with the small chapter length I usually go for.


End file.
